The Next House: USA Jury Panel!

Roberto Bannura, Steven Holl Architects - SHA
Meryati Blackwell, Marlon Blackwell Architects 
Winka Dubbeldam, Archi-Tectonics
Peter Gluck, Gluck+
Michelle Kaufmann, Google and Michelle Kaufmann Studio
Steven Rainville, Olson Kundig
Hilary Sample, GSAPP and MOS
Elizabeth Whittaker, Merge 

Roberto Bannura is a Partner leading the Beijing office of Steven Holl Architects - SHA. Bannura joined SHA in 2007, was promoted to director of the Beijing office in 2010, and was named partner in 2018. He has been responsible for the studio’s award-winning portfolio in Asia and throughout the larger region, undertaking projects in mainland China, Taiwan, the Middle East, Australia, and Russia. Roberto is partner in charge of iCarbonX Headquarters, Cifi International Headquarters, and ChinPaoSan Necropolis, all currently under construction, and is also overseeing a large portfolio of cultural projects and masterplans in the Middle East. Roberto realized Cofco Cultural and Health Center (2022) and led the design for Powerhouse Precinct at Parramatta (2019) as partner in charge. He was responsible for Sliced Porosity Block (2012) and the Civic Center and Planning Museums in Tianjin Eco City (2013) as project director.

Meryati Blackwell (Ati) leads an internationally renowned design practice Marlon Blackwell Architects with her partner, AIA Gold Medalist Marlon Blackwell, focusing deliberately on civic projects in education, recreation, health care, and culture that foster the community and the public good. In every instance, she works to offer dignity through design, treating people and places with respect, believing every project demands unique responses that are innovative, tactile, and carefully attuned to local conditions and cultures. Ati’s impactful work is seen through a wide variety of projects that have received recognition with significant publication and more than 200 design awards including the 2016 Cooper Hewitt National Design Award in Architecture and the 2025 Mies Crown Hall Americas Prize. Ati is a constant presence in every project, co-creating architecture of the highest aspirations through a holistic design process that values interior and exterior environments equally. Her situational approach to stewardship of environmental, social, and economic resources, demonstrates that architecture of the highest aspiration can be created anywhere and for everyone, setting an example for firms of all sizes and expanding the presence and effect of architecture in society at large. 

Winka Dubbeldam is the founding partner of the NYC-based firm Archi-Tectonics, and is widely known for her award-winning work. She was the Chair and Miller Professor of Architecture at UPenn for 20 years, and has taught at Columbia, Cornell and Harvard University. She has been the external examiner for the AA, and at the Bartlett UCL, both in London. She has chaired many design juries, such as the AIANY, Prix de Rome, Plan Magazine, and Boffo, and was named one of Design Intelligence's 30 Most Admired Educators in 2015. Winka was the creative director for the Visual Italian Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale [2021-2023] and has lectured worldwide at many symposia and universities.

Peter L. Gluck is founder and principal of GLUCK+. For over 50 years, Peter Gluck has shaped the firm’s ethos to elevate the quality of the built environment. GLUCK+ is recognized for Architect-Led Design Build: single-source responsibility with architects leading the building process. The practice is dedicated to pushing the boundaries of design with real-world expertise to craft bold and conceptually unique architecture. The broad range of commissions that vary from single houses to educational non-profits to urban mixed-use developments is consistently recognized through national and international design awards and publications. Notable projects include the sensitive restoration and pavilion addition to Mies van der Rohe’s Morris Greenwald House in Connecticut; Bridge – 205 Race, one of the first LEED Gold high-rise developments in Philadelphia; and the award-winning Cary Leeds Center for Tennis & Learning, a public/private initiative in Crotona Park, Bronx, which the New York Times hailed in April 2017 as “one of the city’s best new works of public architecture.” Peter received his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Architecture from Yale University in 1965. He and others in his class were the catalyst for what would become the Yale Building Project. He has taught at Columbia and Yale schools of architecture, and curated exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Milan Triennale. An early firm monograph, The Modern Impulse: Peter L. Gluck and Partners, was published in 2008. Peter lectures widely on the need for architects to change the profession and has served on the NCARB Futures Task Force, advising on the future of the role of the architect. He also serves on the Auburn University Rural Studio Advisory Group, and The East Harlem School Board of Trustees. 

Michelle Kaufmann is a visionary architect at the intersection of technology and design. She currently is the Director of The Lab at Google, including leading the  R+D work for the built environment, where she is tasked with driving foundational and future-focused scalable innovations that seamlessly create an extraordinary experience in a carbon-free workplace in 2030. With a passion for thoughtful, sustainable, accessible design, Michelle employs a cross-section of digital tools, prefabrication, and systems building approaches. Prior to joining Google, she worked with X on a moonshot for architecture, Flux, Frank O. Gehry and her own practice Michelle Kaufmann Studio. Michelle's work has been featured in the New York Times, Dwell, WIRED, The Today Show, Popular Science, Sundance Channel, HGTV, TIME magazine, and Architectural Record. A full-size replica of Michelle’s home was built at the Smithsonian National Building Museum as part of the exhibit and was featured on PBS show “10 Homes that Changed America”.  Her work has also been exhibited in many museums, including her design of the Smart Home in the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago and LA MOCA. Michelle serves as an advisor on the MIT Architecture Committee and is the 2023 Distinguished Fellow at Berkeley's Department of Development + Design. She received her MArch from Princeton University and BArch from Iowa State University. She has been a lecturer and keynote speaker for numerous events, including the U.S. White House and the Smithsonian Museum. 

Steven Rainville is a Principal and Owner at Olson Kundig. Rainville brings the heart of a craftsman, the hands of a builder, and the mind of an artist to his practice of architecture, which spans nearly 30 years at Olson Kundig. Influenced by the legacy of his father and grandfathers, who are craftsmen and builders, Steven is drawn to the expression of craft and tectonics, particularly the ways in which buildings come together and in the details and materials from which they are made. Equal parts beauty and performance, his design approach is characterized by its rationality as much as its quiet balance. As leader of Olson Kundig’s research and innovation initiatives, Steven balances future-forward innovation with time-tested methods—honoring established practices while exploring emerging tools and advanced digital technologies.

Hilary Sample is the IDC Foundation Professor of Housing Design and coordinator of the Core III Studio at GSAPP, and Co-Founder of the New York-based architecture and design studio MOS. Since its establishment in 2003, MOS has won major national and international awards and been recognized in significant publications. Monographs about the studio include an issue of El Croquis and Selected Works (Princeton Architectural Press, 2016). Sample recently published Maintenance Architecture (MIT Press, 2016) and has taught at Columbia GSAPP, Harvard GSD, Yale SoA, and the University of Toronto. She has held the John G. Williams Teaching Chair at the University of Arkansas and the Reyner Banham Chair at the State University of Buffalo. MOS undertakes projects diverse in scale and type, spanning throughout North America, Europe, and Asia. Recent projects include the Petite École in France, a public pavilion for teaching design to children (2019); Laboratorio de Vivienda in Mexico, a housing-focused education center (2018); Krabbesholm School in Denmark, a complex of four art studios (2012); and a photographer’s studio (2020). A collective affordable housing residence in Washington, D.C. is scheduled for completion in 2022. The work of MOS is held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, Harvard University’s Frances Loeb Library, and Columbia University’s Butler Library. Sample, along with Michael Meredith, is a recipient of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Museum’s National Design Award in Architecture (2015), the United States Artists Award (2020), and the Rome Prize (2022–23). 

Elizabeth Whittaker is the Founding Principal of Boston based Merge Architects, a practice aimed at developing contemporary craft, transforming type, and addressing social ecologies across all program. Elizabeth approaches architecture as a discipline embedded in both practice and academia. She is currently an Associate Professor in Practice of Architecture at the Graduate School of Design, where she has been teaching Core Architecture Studios since 2009. The work of MERGE has evolved from small-scale material explorations to transforming Housing typologies in Boston, Detroit, and throughout the US. The practice explores contemporary interpretations of varying contexts, as MERGE reimagines the vernacular of each unique site and region at varying housing scales. The need for more housing in particular offers immense opportunity for experimentation and the revitalization of many neighborhoods throughout the country. As the housing crisis in the US has reached a fever pitch, we cannot rely on big development to satisfy all of our collective housing needs and changing lifestyles. MERGE is translating known residential building and unit types in both form and material to address this demand for tectonic and social diversity through their research and built work on types such as the single-family, flats, maisonettes, duplexes, triple-deckers, and townhouses. The work of MERGE has been widely published both nationally and internationally and has received many design awards over the years, including most recently Architizer's 2025 A+ Awards 'Top 5 (medium) Firm' worldwide and their '#1 Popular Choice (medium) Firm' worldwide. In addition, Elizabeth and MERGE have been awarded the AIA Young Architects Award, Architectural Record’s Design Vanguard, the Architectural League of New York ‘Emerging Voices’ Award, and the recipient of Architectural Record’s 2017 Women in Architecture ‘Next Generation Leader’ Award – an honor bestowed upon one female architect in the U.S. each year.