The American Institute of Architects (AIA) is known for bringing together licensed architects, industry professionals, and people seeking educational and networking opportunities to share the latest news and resources to continually push building architecture and design to new heights.

Luxury homes are filled with beautiful finishes that are highly coordinated with other finishes, furnishings and the landscape exterior.  Often, these finishes are expensive, bespoke, and tend to have a long lead time to procure.  But specifying exotic or rare materials is not the end means to designing and building a custom, luxury building. There is a certain art and skill required to seamlessly and successfully install high-end finishes.

I had a very unique opportunity this Fall.  I was asked to help facilitate the AIA Chicago’s jury review of the Redwood Empire’s AIA 2018 Design Awards as one of their Board Members.  A quick Expedia booking, a 12P P.M. red-eye to Chicago, a Blue Train to the Chicago AIA Headquarters, a 6-hour deliberation followed by the Blue Train and 12 P.M. return flight to San Francisco, I had an interesting 24-hour insight to the review of what happens in AIA Design Awards review process.  The following are some of the take-aways for helping submitting firms understand the thinking of a jury.