The impact of AIA's second annual Architecture Week

Across the country this week, AIA components and foundations are making architecture more visible and accessible to young people. 

This is the second year of AIA's annual Architecture Week initiative, supported by AIA National, the Committee on Architecture for Education, and the College of Fellows. The program, which aims to put architects and designers in community spaces like schools and libraries, awarded 20 grants last year. Interest in the program more than doubled in 2025, resulting in 43 chapters receiving grants in 2026, for a total of $48,250 awarded this year. 

This matters because, as Lori Apfel Cardeli, AIA, puts it, “You can’t become what you can’t see.” 

Devon Davis, AIA’s point person for K–12 engagement, adds, “Awareness creates possibility. When young people realize that everything around them—every chair, every app, every logo—was designed by a person with a vision, the natural next question becomes: why not me?”

AIA Brooklyn: Reading The Block

AIA Brooklyn's Mentoring Architectural Pathways program has a fitting acronym: MAP, a nod toward its goal of helping people find their way in architecture. For Architecture Week this year, MAP's director Mi Zhang, AIA, developed an offshoot of MAP—which typically aids college students and emerging professionals—specifically for high school students. MAP's high school workshop, Reading the Block, is one of two Architecture Week programs offered by AIA Brooklyn this year; the other is the elementary school workshop, Design Like a Girl.

Zhang got the inspiration for the program from her experience participating in an A.R.E. study group. After obtaining her license, Zhang says, "I decided to stay and continue to support others by facilitating the study group." MAP launched this year as a dual-mission initiative that pairs seasoned architects with small cohorts of emerging professionals for a year-long mentoring journey. Running from May through the following April, each cohort builds professional relationships while collectively contributing to a community service project--which this year means AIA Brooklyn's Architecture Week K-12 workshops, where mentors and mentees collaborate side by side to serve students and the broader community. Zhang noted, "the Architecture Week grant served as a catalyst" to develop Reading the Block, which is the chapter's first program aimed at high school students. 

Reading the Block is a two-day workshop that guides students through a mini architecture studio. Students learn the fundamentals of site analysis, discover the urban block within the community infrastructure, and express design ideas for the built environment by presenting their solutions.  Each cluster of five to seven students is led by an architect, an emerging professional, and a college student. The workshop includes an office tour, a close study of an urban block, and a studio charrette in which students create design solutions through model-making, sketching, or writing to advocate for a community need. Drawing inspiration from "The Works: Anatomy of a City" by Kate Ascher, which explores the systems that support and sustain city life, Reading the Block encourages high school students to visually observe and apply design solutions to the elements of the urban block. The selected site is located near City Tech’s Department of Architecture, which is hosting and partnering with AIA Brooklyn for the workshops.

Zhang compared architects to doctors, in that both professions strive to support human welfare, and she hopes the initial discovery of architecture helps the younger generation find their professional pathway in serving the built environment. AIA Brooklyn will be kicking off Brooklyn's inaugural Architecture Week on Monday, April 13th, with a proclamation event hosted by the Brooklyn Borough President's office.

AIA Pennsylvania: Outreach across 23 counties 

AIA Pennsylvania is putting its grant funding toward a three-pronged statewide outreach program. One prong was an April 13 press conference with the Pennsylvania Library Association, which is helping the chapter coordinate its Architecture Week program.

The second part is a display showcasing the chapter’s design award winners at the Pennsylvania state capitol. Taking the form of an 8-foot map of Pennsylvania, the display “lets legislators and the public … see where there's award-winning design happening in their area,” says Amyra Weiss, AIA Pennsylvania’s communications lead and the person spearheading its Architecture Week efforts.

The third component is 44 architect- and designer-led story hours at libraries across 23 Pennsylvania counties. For libraries unable to host in-person story hours, AIA Pennsylvania shipped books and activity materials to all the remaining county library systems, enabling them to do their own Architecture Week feature. 

The book for each story hour is “Iggy Peck, Architect” by Andrea Beaty. Cardeli has described the book as “the first encounter many children have with architecture as an idea,” one that frames design “as a natural extension of curiosity and persistence—qualities children already possess.” Complementing the readings is an animal dice game developed by AIA Kansas City.

Weiss’s motivation for leading the program came from two places. For one, she wants the public to better understand that architects don’t just work with developers or wealthy clients. During outreach, Weiss hopes “architects can talk about how they design schools, how they design libraries.”  

Second, Weiss wants to strengthen her state’s pipeline of young, aspiring architects. Echoing Cardeli, Weiss says, “Kids can't aspire to be something that they can't see.”  

AIA Maryland: Bringing architects to schools 

AIA Maryland’s program is titled Architecture in Action: Design Days, which provides free architecture and design experiences for K-12 schools in Maryland. It “introduces students to architecture through books, hands-on activities, and classroom visits with practicing architects,” Cardeli says. She is the creative lead of the program, and Jaclyn Faulkner, executive director of AIA Maryland, handles much of the program’s communication and administrative needs. Their goal isn’t to convince students to become architects. Instead, it’s to increase students’ critical thinking skills and show them they can have a role in the built environment.

Books are a big part of AIA Maryland’s efforts. The program aims to stock schools with curated architecture books, building collections big enough that students can take some books home permanently without depleting each school’s supply.

The program also facilitates classroom visits from architects, who speak to students about the profession, read a book, lead an activity, and answer questions. The idea is to give children room interact with real-life architects “in a non-scary way. They're not getting graded on this,” explains Cardeli.

Cardeli values outreach like AIA Maryland’s for a personal reason: she wonders whether she would have become an architect if she hadn't been introduced to it at an early age.

Likewise, Faulkner says, “I want to make a difference in a kid's life because I had that person for me.” And on a broader level, Cardeli thinks the profession will be stronger if it builds a diverse pipeline of professionals “who have had the life experience to be able to give back to their communities.”

Inspired to get involved in outreach efforts? Check out these resources:

• Architecture Week’s schedule page, which includes virtual read-alouds throughout the week
• AIA’s guide on three easy ways to get involved in Architecture Week
• Cardeli’s three-part series on the power of children’s architecture books, the authors behind those books, and classroom activities designed for architects conducting outreach

Danielle Steger is AIA’s senior manager, editorial & publications.