Join Newark and Suburban for an evening celebrating architectural excellence at the 2025 AIANS Design Awards Ceremony ar Orange Lawn Tennis Club in South Orange.

Guest Speaker: Philip S. Kennedy-Grant, FAIA
Presentation: On Becoming an Architect, exploring how recent research in neuroscience and embodied cognition has deepened our understanding of architecture.

Enjoy a full dinner, open bar, and an inspiring evening with colleagues as we announce this year’s winning projects in the following categories:

Residential
Commercial
Institutional
Historic Preservation

Celebrate the creativity and impact of our members’ work and connect with peers from across the region!

Course Description (1 HSW)

This presentation will review the insights into architecture that have been revealed by research in neuroscience and embodied cognition. These findings include the relationship of architecture to mental health, the impact of light on well-being, how spatial arrangements affect social dynamics, the psychology of color, and biophilic design. These topics will be addressed within the framework of how, through the implementation and development of specific skills, one becomes an architect, described and illustrated by the author.

Speaker

Philip S. Kennedy-Grant, FAIA is an architect, artist, writer, and musician. He graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, and served in the Army Corps of Engineers. He earned Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Notre Dame School of Architecture.

Mr. Kennedy-Grant is former Chairman of the Editorial Board of Architecture New Jersey magazine and of the Design Arts Advisory Panel for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. He has written extensively for Architecture New Jersey, as well as for Architectural Record, Architecture, and Texas Architect. He received a Fellowship for his writing and editing and an Artist in Education grant, both from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts. Mr. Kennedy-Grant is the co-author and editor of the book AIA New Jersey Guidebook: 150 Buildings and Places.

Mr. Kennedy-Grant has been honored for the design excellence of his work since the inception of his practice for projects ranging from residences to renovations of historic structures.

An accomplished artist, Mr. Kennedy-Grant’s watercolor and ink sketches of Paris have been exhibited at the Alliance Française in Washington, D.C. His travel sketches have been published in Arcade and Places magazines. He exhibits his paintings frequently and has had several one-man shows of his art. As a member of the Board of Trustees of The Center for Contemporary Art, he initiated and conducted the international competition and exhibit “Art in Architecture” in 2010.