2011 Recipient | AIA Honorary Membership

Kristen Richards, Hon. AIA | Notes of Interest

Kristen Richards may consider herself an everyday architectural journalist at heart, but as evidenced by the testimony of many grateful professionals, she has become arguably the most dominant disseminator of information and news in the architecture world today. Editor-in-chief of three online publications and founder of ArchNewsNow.com (ANN), Richards brings important, far-reaching issues and well-organized architectural themes to the public every day.

For ANN, Richards takes a discretionary handle on information that is much-appreciated by today's professionals. As opposed to throwing together material and bombarding daily readers, Richards reads deep into the most pertinent items and creates a digest of up to 20 stories, commentaries, and cross-commentaries. As a result, ANN boasts 20,000 daily readers, the website receiving one million hits per month, and it consistently ranks among the top websites listed by and linked through varied publications and organizations. The Society of Architectural Historians, for example, uses ANN as its news button—one of 240 sites to do so in the nation and one of 4,000 websites to do so from around the globe.

Richards’ background in design journalism began with Interiors magazine, where for 10 years she provided relentless news coverage and orchestrated events, even conducting a two-year lecture tour titled “The Do’s and Don’ts of Getting Publicity – through an Editor’s Eye.” Additionally, her 1999 book Retail and Restaurant Spaces was such a hit, it was reissued in soft cover in 2002 by Rockport.

In 2008, Richards was honored by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) with Honorary Membership "in recognition of her significant achievement and contribution of notable service to the profession of Landscape Architecture." Outside of ASLA's own publications, ANN probably carries the most news and opinion on landscape architecture, a rising discipline in this century.

Richards will forever be viewed in gratitude by the AIA New York Chapter for a time in 2002 when, near the end of its financial reserves because of the depressed economy and the aftermath of 9/11, the leadership of AIA NY bravely determined to renew publication of its venerable (1928) publication Oculus. Needing a new approach for the fast-paced new world of electronic communication, an electronic newsletter was put into place. Richards, who had proven her skillful embrace of the new electronic media—first at DesignArchitecture.com and then by the immediate success of ArchNewsNow.com—was the right woman for the job. Kristen shaped the content for and entirely wrote e-Oculus.com ("e-O"), launched in December 2002, and it now reaches 10,000 subscribers. Oculus has a circulation of 8,000 (the annual Design Awards issue reaches 9,000) and is sent to all AIA components, university libraries, and pertinent government agencies.

Speaking to her service to the AIA New York Chapter, its President, Anthony Schirripa, FAIA, says in his nomination letter, "Far beyond her position as editor, Kristen has brought her keen intelligence, ready wit and ability to crystallize consensus to AIA deliberations, speaking up and speaking out to help our Chapter make strategic decisions about how we set priorities about information and knowledge sharing."

Lastly, the Institute as a whole has never been far from Richards' mind or work. Beyond regular panel participation, she created an AIA-sanctioned Continuing Education Unit program about design publication and delivered it around the United States for two years, including at AIA National and to local components. She also served the Institute when she bylined three Gold Medalist profiles in Architecture: Celebrating the Past, Designing the Future, the AIA's 150th anniversary publication.

Richards has truly shown the power and influence that can come through journalism, and has fought both for the Institute as a whole and for the value of design. Coupled with her discretionary eye, Richards sets herself apart by her writing style, grasp of thematic ties, and inclusive nature in compiling many outlooks and viewpoints. As a result, she starts a valuable dialogue within and outside the profession. Blair Kamin, architecture critic, perhaps says it best in his reference letter for Richards: It is, perhaps, an exaggeration to say that Kristen Richards has changed the way that the architecture world communicates, but not much of one."

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