2022 AIA Illinois Honor Awards

Congratulations to Chip von Weise, recipient of the 2022 AIA Illinois Nathan Clifford Ricker Award for Architecture Education! The AIA Illinois Honor Awards recognizes people and projects epitomizing the contributions of the architecture profession, the transformative power of design, and the dedication of individuals to service and excellence. Congrats to all of this year's Honor Award winners! Please read about each recipient here.

As director of Virginia Tech’s Chicago Studio since 2006 and a participant since 2004, Chip von Weise has been contributing to the education of fourth-year architecture students in Chicago for 18 years. Working with previous directors he helped teach, mentor and host students in the firm as well as help develop the basic outline of the current Chicago Studio curriculum. Since taking over as director in 2016, he has been teaching a design lab and building technology seminar aimed at delivering a fourth-year integrated studio curriculum that merges the intellectual rigor of an academic design studio with the urban and technical issues of building real architecture in Chicago.

Through a network of collaborators in Chicago, they leverage the knowledge and experience of a wide range of design professionals who work with students to develop design projects as if they were coming out of a professional office.

In addition, by teaming with local developers, the City of Chicago Planning Department and local aldermen and neighborhood groups, students wrestle with the complexities of diversity, equity, fairness in housing, relationships between the public and private domains, sustainability, wellness and other issues germane to building in a city. And they do this while not giving up the rich intellectual and conceptual dialogue inherent in any good academic studio discourse. Thus, they leave the program better suited to both succeed in their fifth-year thesis, and better prepared to enter the profession upon graduation.