AIA Rhode Island awarded its prestigious Archistar Award, which recognizes exceptional individual contributions to architecture by non-architects at the 2016 AIAri Design Awards Celebration on Thursday, December 1^st at Linden Place in Bristol, RI.  The purpose of the program is to honor individuals who make outstanding contributions to architecture but who are not architects. Any AIAri member may nominate an individual who has made significant contributions to a specific project or has had success in a particular program or initiative.

This year AIAri recognized Barnaby Evans and Peter Mello of WaterFire and The WaterFire Arts Center for their inspiring work and creative community development of the Capitol City, in particular the WaterFire Arts Center project.

“Barnaby Evans is a world- renowned artist that helped usher in the “renaissance of Providence.” He is the Creator of WaterFire and Co-CEO of WaterFire Providence.

Peter Mello is Managing Director and  Co-CEO of WaterFire Providence. Both he and Barnaby are committed to community building through WaterFire and now the WaterFire Arts Center. “