3 Wins at the 2026 AIA Dallas Design Awards

This is the new face of one of the country’s fastest growing cities. For the skyrocketing population of Princeton, Texas, we designed a civic hub that encourages citizens to engage with leadership, offering more direct access to city services and representatives. In addition to city administration, the new city hall also unites the police department and parks and recreation under one roof, on a site treated as a park to welcome the community.

Using durable local materials and spaces flexible enough to evolve for future administrative and community needs, the project is designed to last 100 years. Its clear organization—from structural grid to circulation paths—gives the building a framework that can absorb generations of change. The design also anticipates environmental risk, particularly flooding, by working with the site’s topography and collecting stormwater in a pond integral to the landscape design approach.

Setting a benchmark for inclusive urban living, Oak Lawn Place is North Texas’ first affordable housing development catered to LGBTQ+ seniors. Developed with Resource Center—one of the country’s largest LGBTQ+ community centers and a key North Texas HIV/AIDS service organization—the project offers a home and warm welcome to qualifying applicants over 55. Designed with the belief that housing can and should be both affordable and beautiful, Oak Lawn Place transforms what was an industrial boat salvage yard into Dallas Morning News architecture critic Mark Lamster’s “favorite new building in Dallas.”

This 1,500-student middle school is Richardson ISD’s first new construction building in three decades. Visually interconnected and filled with daylight, the design supports a vibrant, close-knit community experience and prioritizes well-being.

Within a highly constrained footprint, we had to think upward rather than outward. At the building’s heart is a multipurpose commons, inspired by the Greek agora, that reaches out at the ground level to meet the community. Around it, grade-level learning “neighborhoods” stack vertically rather than stretching into conventional horizontal wings. Each neighborhood gets its own identity through color, graphics, and materials, while staying visually connected to the broader student body. Light wells, covered plazas, and elevated terraces draw the outdoors into the compact footprint, while open sightlines and clear wayfinding make the bright space simple to navigate from the moment you step inside.