Recipe for a Room 2026: Places for Repair

Join us for Recipe for a Room 2026: Places of Repair, a live contest featuring the work of NYC-area architecture and design students paired with professional mentors. It's a lively, design-focused evening of presentation, discussion and real-time voting for your favorite project!

This annual event, organized by the AIANY Interiors Committee, features spatial, sculptural, miniature room models and fosters fun, creativity and professional mentorship. The 2026 contest benefits the Repair Café El Barrio, a community-led initiative in East Harlem focused on repair, learning, and collective care through free repair events and workshops.

In reference to 2026 AIANY President Mark Gardner’s theme of REPAIR, student competitors are creating spaces which heal, fix, or assist something they identify as "broken" in New York City. The students' projects focus on social, economic, physical, and ecological forms of repair.

Repair definition (verb): to restore by replacing a part or putting together what is torn or broken; to restore to a sound or healthy state; to make good or set right.

2026 Recipe Contest Judges:
Matthew Bremer, 2023 President, AIA New York; Principal, Architecture in Formation
Mimi Hoang, FAIA, NOMA, Co-Founding Partnerl, nARCHITECTS
Andrea Steele, AIA, Founder, Andrea Steele Architecture

Student Presenters & Mentors:
Michelle Aca, New York Institute of Technology – NYC
Mentor:
Alex Bahensky, RA, STUDIO 397 Architecture PLLC

Simran Maredia, Cornell Tech – Cornell University
Mentor:
Nicole De Feo, AIA, NCARB, LEED AP, WEDG, GRP, Trust for Governors Island

Paris Mendes, Parsons School of Design |The New School
Mentor:
Shalini Abeyaratne, AIA, NOMA, LEED AP, Gensler

Edozie Onumonu, Cornell Tech – Cornell University
Mentor: 
Jean-Gabriel Neukomm, AIA, JG Neukomm Architecture

Hao Ou, Pratt Institute
Mentor: 
August Atzenweiler, Jaklitsch/Gardner Architects

Tvisha Patel, School of Visual Arts
Mentor: 
Diana Hayden, LEED GA, STUDIO 397 Architecture PLLC

Daniel Scanlon, Columbia GSAPP
Mentor:
Roderick Cruz, AIA, NCARB, Ammor Architecture LLP

Zekaiya Whittington, The Cooper Union
Mentor:
Joan Hyun, RA, LEED AP, CPHC, Ciardullo Architecture & Engineering

About the Judges:
Matthew Bremer, was 2023 AIA New York President and is Principal of Architecture in Formation, which has a reputation for spirited and rigorous projects ranging from bespoke residences to innovative affordable housing, commercial, institutional, and community development. A native Texan, Bremer studied architecture and art history as an undergraduate at Rice University and received his Master of Architecture from Yale University where, in addition to architectural design, he studied art, art history, cultural theory, and criticism. He has taught and been guest juror at architecture schools around the country, and in 2009 was recognized by the AIA with the national Young Architects Award. The firm's work has won multiple local and national awards and been published widely. As founder and principal, Bremer is engaged in each project from start to finish, getting to know each client, each site, each budget, and each set of unique problems early on to refine their needs and aspirations, and to find hidden opportunities and latent strategies.

Mimi Hoang co-founded nARCHITECTS with Eric Bunge with a belief in architecture as an agent of positive change, that connects people and environments in unexpected ways. An ambition to respond to changes in contemporary life while fostering engagement guides her work across civic and private realms. Born in the tropics of Vietnam, she brings a global outlook and an obsession with nature to unite social and environmental resiliency with spatial and material innovation. nARCHITECTS received a National Design Award in Architecture by the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum and an American Academy of Arts and Letters in Architecture Award. Currently an Adjunct Associate Professor at Columbia/ University, Hoang received her M.Arch from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and her Bachelor of Science from M.I.T. Architectural Record recently recognized her with a Women in Architecture Design Leadership Award.

Andrea Steele is Founding Principal of Andrea Steele Architecture (ASA), a New York-based practice that believes the scale of architecture is not measured by its physical size, but by its positive impact on people, resources, and sense of place. With 30 years of experience, Steele has led a wide range of complex projects throughout the United States. Steele served as partner of TEN Arquitectos' New York office for more than eight years before renaming the studio in 2019. She works with innovative institutions of all kinds-including NASA, Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York Public Library, Brooklyn Public Library, and Make the Road New York. Steele engages the entire community in every step of the project development and approaches the design process as an opportunity for shared learning. Steele received her Master of Architecture degree from Harvard University's Graduate School of Design and her Bachelor of Arts in Architecture from Lehigh University. She has taught at Cornell University, City College of the City University of New York, and Catholic University.