Quinn Evans Honored with AIA’s 2024 Architecture Firm Award

A grid of headshots of the Quinn Evans team, showing happy team members smiling at the camera.
Quinn Evans continues to transform the architectural discipline to address our most pressing modern challenges: climate change and social inequity.
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF ARCHITECTS
We are honored to be recognized by the American Institute of Architects for our leadership and impact on the architectural profession and humbled to be counted among the leading firms of our time. This accolade underscores our commitment to stewardship through the transformation of existing places.
A new building is highlighted on a beautiful day surrounded by green grass and school children playing outside.
They lead the way as a firm that holds design excellence and sustainable stewardship in equal measure.
ELIZABETH MCCLURE HALLAS, AIA
2023 CHAIR, AIA HISTORIC RESOURCES COMMITTEE ADVISORY GRoUp

We are a collective of design thinkers dedicated to the stewardship and transformation of places and communities.

We revitalize places through our indispensable framework of cultural and sustainable stewardship. We apply design thinking to bring communities together around unique solutions that repair social fabric while counteracting the effects of climate change.

Our work is built upon preservation's ethical waste-not, want-not foundation along with an acute awareness of the latent value of places that form the memory, experience, and fabric of people's lives. For us, it's not about old versus new or preservation versus sustainability. It's about the people and communities we serve.

A new library space is vibrantly filled with people of all ages, with bright light and a living wall of plant, highlighted by wooden accents.
A group of four people look down at a table with curiosity.

People-oriented, Stewardship-focused

With a diverse team that includes historians, landscape architects, sustainability specialists, and interior designers working together in partnership with architects, we employ lifecycle thinking to design with context, history, and users in mind.

We put people first in everything we do—in our work as stewards of the built environment and in managing our firm. This fosters leadership through strength and compassion driven by the values of equity and stewardship.

Our Work

In tandem with high-performance designs, the positive impacts of building reuse are powerful and compounding. Existing places harbor enormous value in the form of invested ideas, culture, material, and carbon. Every project is an opportunity to understand and work on a unique combination of social and performance issues as well as to learn how solutions play out over time.

An image grid of new buildings photographed from the inside and outside.
An image of Michigan State Capitol against the evening sky.

The Future of a Landmark

Michigan State Capitol

Guests walk up a ramp at the national museum of natural history on a brisk sunny day.

A Gracious and Welcoming Approach

National Museum of Natural History South Entrance

An image of the inside of old city hall.

Revitalizing a Civic Icon

Old City Hall

Resilient Regeneration

Through long-term stewardship, we enhance iconic and beloved places and thoughtfully manage change for the future. Our longstanding partnerships address performance to serve next-generation needs.

Enhanced Places for All

We advance people-centered solutions through design and innovation. Our approach removes barriers to enrich shared social experiences and connect people to place.

A photo of the Terrace Theater beautifully lit from the inside with a piano on the stage.

A Dramatic Transformation

Terrace Theater

A brightly lit photograph of the Varina Library with no visitors on a sunny day.

Connecting to Context

Varina Library

People utilize the amenities at the Joseph Education center.

Engaging Community Through Creativity

Joseph Education Center

A brick wall painted to look like row homes lines the African American Civil rights site.

Celebrating Forgotten Histories

20th Century African American Civil Rights Sites

People gather in the open work space of the Open Works building.

An Industrial Renaissance

Open Works

People happily stroll with partners and dogs through the Eastern Market on a warm summer day.

Restoring a Beloved Community Resource

Eastern Market

Engines for Community Vitality

We empower communities and revitalize social infrastructure with a deep respect for what social psychiatrist Mindy Thompson Fullilove calls the community's "own mastery of the local players and their play."

Climate Champions

Reusing existing buildings is the greatest opportunity for immediate and lasting impact to address social inequity and climate change. Our expertise and leadership in sustainable stewardship is the way forward.

People excitedly walk through the National Air and Space Museum looking at displace cases of relics.

Taking NASM into the Future

National Air and Space Museum

A building towers high above the others on the block on a bright day.

A Community-Focused Renovation

Monument East

A repurposed factory building is enjoyed by visitors on a bright day.

The Future of a Factory

Packing House

Our Process

We find that design thinking - informed by the synthesis of the best available information—accomplishes better, more resilient, and more holistic outcomes for both people and places.

Innovation

Our approach is people-focused: we strive to adapt places to perform better and meet their communities' needs. In the course of this work, we advance the art and science of building reuse by applying the latest research, tools, and methods. We're making strides in areas such as historic building information management (HBIM), which we're integrating with digital twins to create a powerful new stewardship tool.

A person looks down at a tablet while wearing a hard hat and standing on scaffolding at the side of a building.
People walk along a ramp against a history building.

Inclusive Design

We approach every project with the goal of creating an inclusive experience for users of all backgrounds and abilities. Our work within the context of landmark public buildings has honed our ability to craft graceful and integrated solutions that enrich projects of all scales. We bring empathy and sensitivity as we design for the diversity of the human experience.

Planning for
the Future

While preservation planning and architecture may conjure ideas about the past, these disciplines are about imagining the future. Fundamentally, they're about stories—what and which stories, who tells them, when and why they are told, and in what context. We facilitate conversations that discover seldom-heard voices and stories, then elevate them through design.

A photograph of a historic sign saying, "This is a cemetery" and "Indian Mounds Park."

 We Are Quinn Evans. 

Award Press

🔗 Quinn Evans receives the AlA Architecture Firm Award for 2024 | American Institute of Architects

🔗 Detroit architecture firm recognized for historic preservation efforts | Detroit PublicRadio

🔗 Sustainability champion receives AlA's highest honor | Construction Specifier

🔗 Quinn Evans is the 2024 AlA Architecture Firm Award winner Archinect

🔗 Quinn Evans named 2024 winner of the AlA Architecture Firm Award | TheArchitect's Newspaper

🔗 Quinn Evans receives 2024 AlA Architecture Firm Award | Traditional Building

Award Jury

Anne Hicks Harney
FAIA, Chair, Long Green Specs, Manasquan, NJ


Kjell Anderson
FAIA, LMN Architects, Seattle

Ung-Joo Scott Lee
AIA, Morphosis Architects, New York City

Amy Slattery
AIA, Odimo, Kansas City, Mo.

Megumi Tamanaha
AIA, ARO, New York City

Roderic Walton
AIA, Moody Nolan, Chicago

Korey White
AIA, DLR Group, Quincy, Ill.

Taryn Williams
SGH, Washington, D.C.