President’s Remarks: 2025 Honor & Design Awards Celebration!

Spencer Alexander, AIA: 2025 Chapter President – Anderson Alexander

Welcome to the 2025 AIAri Honor & Design Awards Celebration!

Good evening, everyone, it is such an honor to welcome you all — our distinguished guests, our members, our clients, and, of course, tonight’s incredible nominees and winners — to our annual Honor & Design Awards Celebration!

The design awards are meant to take a moment to appreciate the extraordinary work that is helping to shape the physical fabric of our state.

Tonight, we aren’t simply recognizing beautiful objects; we are celebrating projects that show a profound commitment to community, sustainability, and the unique sense of place that defines Rhode Island.

Every submission represents countless hours of collaboration, and problem-solving. To the award recipients: your work is a great representation of the power of architecture to elevate the human experience and new and exciting work in Rhode Island. The work shown tonight solved a client’s problem, respected a historic context with new ways to connect the past and present, pushed new materials, and, most importantly, have added to our built environment in new and exciting ways. Congratulations to every firm and every individual who contributed to this exceptional body of work.

As your 2025 AIA Rhode Island President, I look at our state, and I see a future of new opportunities for architects and significant responsibilities for our profession. Our challenge, as always, is to build a vibrant future and create work that both benefits the clients as well as the built environment they are placed in.

As we move forward, we must move beyond projects that are merely safe, development programmatically focused, or—try to recreate the past. We cannot allow our cities and towns to be filled with buildings that lack soul and offer no connection to their location. We need to cultivate a New Rhode Island Vernacular.

This isn’t about replicating old styles; it’s about understanding the core DNA of this state—our intimate scale, our relationship with the water, our specific use of materials, and our appreciation for craft. Contemporary design in Rhode Island must respond intelligently to our climate, our history, and our neighborhoods, creating buildings that are distinctly of this place yet wholly modern. This is how we ensure our built environment is memorable.

Our cities are growing and changing. Architecture is the primary tool we have to manage this growth successfully. We need projects that don’t just fill a space but that actively engage the street, foster walkability, and create dynamic public Space.

Thoughtful design is essential to ensure our cities grow robustly and don’t end up with sterile, isolating developments. Whether it’s multi-family housing, community spaces, or an innovative corporate headquarters, our designs must serve as places for community engagement.

Rhode Island’s unique coastal environment makes us acutely aware of the challenges of climate change. The future of RI architecture must be synonymous with resilience and net-zero design. We are moving toward a standard where sustainable design isn’t a premium option, but a fundamental requirement. Our designs must protect the environment for generations to come.

The projects we celebrate tonight are not endpoints; they are milestones on the road to a more beautiful, sustainable, and enjoyable Rhode Island. By seeking the New Rhode Island Vernacular, by embracing contemporary design, and by demanding projects with a true sense of place, we are not just designing buildings; we are creating a built environment that constantly engages and creates a city and space with interest.

Thank you again to all of you—our members, our partners, and our dedicated jurors—for your tireless commitment to design and Rhode Island

I hope you all enjoy the presentations and the open bar.