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, Principal, nARCHITECTS