Congratulations to the Newly Elevated Fellow: Ron Stelmarski, FAIA

Only three percent of AIA's 96,000 members have received this prestigious honor. The Fellowship program was developed to elevate those architects who have made a significant contribution to architecture and society, and who have achieved a standard of excellence in the profession. Election to fellowship not only recognizes the achievements of architects as individuals, but also their significant contribution to architecture and society on a national level.
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Ron Stelmarski, FAIA

Ron Stelmarski believes architecture is the hinge connecting people and place across time. His inventive work interprets culture and context, elevating the public realm and galvanizing communities with architecture of enduring aesthetic and social value.

Enduring Social Value

Ron Stelmarski understands the significance of cultural memory and how to cultivate it. His work is placed deliberately within the historical continuum of each site, providing a bridge that connects people and places across time. He finds the exceptional in the everyday, bringing dignity and excitement to typically utilitarian building typologies. Ron has consistently produced projects which critically address both physical context and human occupancy - circumstances which reflect the constant mutability of people and cities, making layers of time visible.

Buildings as Connective Tissue

Ron’s approach to design treats the built environment as connective tissue. His work expands the role of architecture beyond programmatic functions to focus on the complex issues of today by establishing new relationships between the site and the city, occupants and the public, and indoor and outdoor environments. He focuses resources on bold moves which are straightforward, legible, and consistent, enhancing the way people understand buildings while revealing opportunities for identity within potentially anonymous building types.

A Voice in the Community

Ron has relentlessly advanced the cause of design with social and cultural purpose throughout his 26 years of practice, 10 of which have been spent as the Design Director of the Dallas studio of Perkins&Will. His award-winning approach to design puts community at its center; he gets to know the communities he designs for and delivers an architecture that performs for people. Equally important, he has long been passionate about the value of environmental stewardship and was a charter member of the Perkins&Will Green Committee, through which he influenced the firm’s industry leading commitment to sustainability and resilience.

Stelmarski was granted fellowship on object one, which is given to architects “who have produced distinguished bodies of work through design, urban design, or preservation.”