BNIM principal, Steve McDowell, FAIA, recently served as a juror of the 14th annual ARCHITECT R+D Awards, alongside K.P. Reddy, founder and CEO, Shadow Ventures, and Ming Thompson, AIA, co-founder of Atelier Cho Thompson. The R+D Awards presented by ARCHITECT Magazine feature innovations that advance the architectural industry through design approaches, research pursuits, products, or technologies. For this year’s awards, the jurors reviewed 90 unique submissions before selecting the seven R+D Award recipients.

Steve describes his experience as a juror in reviewing this year’s submissions as an opportunity to see “interesting thinking going on across the design spectrum.” He notes that serving as a juror was a learning opportunity to look at the future of design and understand potential solutions that could impact design practice and help inspire firms, including BNIM “to think differently and do differently in the future,” through research and development. Steve notes that many of the submissions, including the seven R+D award recipients, shared a common focus on human needs and creating solutions to serve people. He explains, “It was heartening to see that the awards take on a lot of the challenges in the world that we face.”

Learn more about this year's inspirational innovations in "The 14th Annual R+D Awards"  by Gideon Fink ShaPiro, ARCHITECT Magazine.