Announcing the 2026 GSD Alumni Council Award Winners
The Harvard Graduate School of Design Alumni Award recognizes the exceptional achievements and leadership of GSD alumni around the globe. Founded and led by the GSD Alumni Council, the award celebrates GSD graduates who are driving innovation and impact within their communities and across their areas of practice.
The Council is pleased to announce Christopher Benninger (MArch ’67), Joan Blumenfeld (MArch ’79), Michael B. Lehrer (MArch ’78), and Alan Ricks (MArch ’10) as the winners of the sixth annual Harvard GSD Alumni Award. These extraordinary alumni exemplify the mission, vision, and values of the GSD through their dedicated work creating a more resilient, just, and beautiful world.
Christopher Benninger (MArch ’67), In Memoriam
The late Christopher Benninger receives the 2026 Harvard GSD Alumni Award in recognition of his five-decade career as an architect, educator, planner, and thought leader who advanced socially responsive sustainable design across India and beyond.
Director and principal architect at CCBA Designs (formerly known as Christopher Charles Benninger Architects), Christopher led a world-renowned multidisciplinary design firm providing comprehensive architecture, urban design, and master planning services. As an architect, he designed landmark campuses and civic institutions, such as the Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad and Suzlon One Earth Global Corporate Headquarters, helping to define contemporary sustainable architecture in the region.
In addition to his work at CCBA, Christopher founded the School of Planning at CEPT University in Ahmedabad and the Centre for Development Studies and Activities in Pune. At these institutions, he pioneered immersive, community-based planning education that positioned design as a tool for empowerment, infrastructure delivery, and poverty alleviation. Christopher Benninger, who was honored with numerous national and international awards during his lifetime, including the JK Aya Great Master’s Award, remains one of India’s most influential design thinkers.
In Letters to a Young Architect, Christopher wrote, “We must understand that our talents and our wealth are only loaned to us, in trusteeship, to use toward the greater good”—a belief he modeled through his lifelong service and teaching.
Joan Blumenfeld (MArch ’79), FAIA, FIIDA
A visionary leader in interior design, Joan Blumenfeld helped shape the profession during her 20-year tenure at Perkins&Will. As the firm’s first global head of interior design, she grew the interior design practice to over 400 designers and led award-winning projects across corporate, higher education, and institutional sectors worldwide, gaining recognition from the American Institute of Architects (AIA), Vanity Fair, Contract Design Magazine, and the International Interior Design Association, among many others.
A transformative advocate for health, sustainability, and gender equity in the built environment, Joan advanced design excellence in public policy, helping to shape post-9/11 planning at the World Trade Center and championing new interior design workplace standards for New York City. Joan established active design initiatives and co-developed Fitwel, a pioneering global healthy building certification system, with the CDC and GSA.
Joan’s influence extends across numerous boards, including the Beverly Willis Foundation for Women in Architecture, the New York Building Congress, and the GSD Alumni Council. As an instrumental member of AIA New York, Joan served on the Board of Directors from 2003 until 2009, becoming president in 2007. In recent years, Joan has shifted her focus from architecture and interior design to art. Her contemporary landscapes and oil paintings draw on her architectural background, translating light, color, materiality, and composition into expressive two-dimensional works that reflect her deep love of place and design. Joan receives the 2026 Harvard GSD Alumni Award in recognition of her distinguished career and generous leadership in service of a more diverse and inclusive industry.
“After about six months [at the GSD] I came to realize I had finally found my people; a cohort of individuals with whom I could share worldviews, values, and most importantly, a sense of humor,” said Joan. “To receive an award from a place that so profoundly changed the trajectory of my life is an unbelievably satisfying honor.”
Michael B. Lehrer (MArch ’78), FAIA
Michael B. Lehrer is the founder and president of Lehrer Architects LA, a mission-driven design practice that believes in creating spaces that are beautiful, sustainable, and grounded in community. Michael has shaped a diverse body of work that ranges from cultural and civic projects to innovative responses to the housing crisis. Notable projects include the Water + Life Museums in Hemet, California—the world’s first LEED Platinum-certified museum—and vibrant tiny-home villages for individuals experiencing homelessness in Los Angeles. Guided by the conviction that beauty is fundamental to human dignity, Michael’s work and writing underscore his philosophy that well-designed spaces should be accessible to all.
Beyond practice, Michael has served as an adjunct associate professor at the University of Southern California, where he taught design studios across all levels and modeled architecture as a vehicle for community well-being and democratic space-making. Michael has also served as president of Homeless Health Care Los Angeles and AIA LA. During his tenure as chair of the GSD Alumni Council, Michael strengthened student-alumni connections, fostered interdisciplinary collaboration, and expanded opportunities for alumni engagement. Michael receives the 2026 Harvard GSD Alumni Award for his unwavering commitment to design excellence and the GSD alumni community.
“Fifty years and an ongoing life of making buildings/places/organizations that I am proud of—and being grounded, let alone appreciated, as a member of our astonishing, multigenerational lifelong Harvard GSD community—is a blessed existence,” said Michael. “Loving community is rudimentary to being an excellent architect, landscape architect, urbanist, and human being. Being loved back, especially by a community who is tasked—by dint of its pursuit of truth, love and beauty—with bringing sustenance, thrivability, joy, and meaning to the places it makes in the world is a very happy thing.”
Alan Ricks (MArch ’10)
As founding principal and co-executive director of MASS (Model of Architecture Serving Society), Alan Ricks has helped build a nonprofit design collective that treats architecture as a catalyst for change. Rooted in rigorous research and thoughtful collaboration with local partners, MASS brings together more than 100 professionals from over 20 countries, creating civic spaces that set new standards for design excellence and public purpose. MASS received the GSD’s Veronica Rudge Green Prize in Urban Design for their work on the world’s first climate‑positive university, the Rwanda Institute for Conservation Agriculture, an inspirational model for design that unites education, conservation, and community. In addition to this distinction, MASS was named Firm of the Year by the American Institute of Architects and recognized by the Wall Street Journal as Innovator of the Year.
Alan regularly teaches advanced architecture studios and was appointed by the governor of Massachusetts to select firms for state-funded work as part of the Designer Selection Board. An International Fellow of the Royal Institute of British Architects and a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum, Alan is the co-author of Seeking Abundance: Design, Ecology, and a Flourishing Planet, which offers an actionable vision for the future of architecture in service of a healthier, more harmonious world. The Council selected Alan for the 2026 GSD Alumni Award in recognition of his sustained efforts to articulate a broader public language for what architecture can do and whom it should serve.
“This award is about community—our community of alumni, our community of designers, and the communities we endeavor to serve,” said Alan. “Nearly a thousand people have contributed to our work at MASS, and I am deeply indebted to all of them for the indelible mark they have left on our organization and in our work. It is their collective effort that this award truly recognizes.”
Christopher Benninger, Joan Blumenfeld, Michael B. Lehrer, and Alan Ricks will be honored at the GSD Comeback: Alumni & Friends Celebration, September 25–26, 2026, alongside the 2025 GSD Alumni Award winners.
What advice would you give to current GSD students?
In Letters to a Young Architect, Christopher wrote, “the greatest gift we can give a student is the knowledge that they will always be students.”
- Be patient. (This was never my strong suit.) I jumped around a lot after graduation, thinking the grass was always greener. I expected instant success, and when I didn’t get it, I was crushed.
- Don’t beat yourself up when you fail. This is a cliché, but it is true; failure is just a natural part of the package. Most people get laid off at least once. Things will get messed up. You will make mistakes, both architecturally and interpersonally.
- If you find a leader who is interested in your work and encouraging you in your advancement, stick with them (again, that patience thing). If you don’t have anyone like that, then try to find someone. This one thing deserves to be repeated, as it is one of the most important.
- The breadth of the practice of architecture is a lot wider than any school can encompass. People graduate and go on to do a whole lot of interesting stuff, and hopefully you will find something that suits your skills and interests.
- Finally (and this is something that was clearly irrelevant when I left the GSD in 1979), embrace the creative possibilities brought by technology, especially AI.
Architecture is a magnificent and grueling profession and life. Exhilarating forever to build.
Happily, imbibe the hard, lifelong work of mastering your craft and your ego at GSD. (I don’t think it takes much more than 30 years to get there, if ever.) There are so many spectacularly varied folks there, so make as many friends as possible at the GSD. Try to know everyone. The ultimate gift of studying at the GSD is the community of amazing people you study with and learn from and teach to.
And if you can know your professors above and beyond studio, that can be fantastic as well. Get to know people in the many other disciplines very well. Social capital invested at the GSD grows massively throughout life.
A design education gives you a unique way of thinking, interrogating questions, and developing a theory about how design can create impact. We often work alongside experts in their own fields, brought in to help catalyze and amplify their work through the built environment. That position is a privilege. It means we are constantly learning from and inspired by the people we work for and the communities they serve.
We have found that our naivete is actually an advantage. We can challenge the status quo and ask fundamental questions about why things are done the way they are. My advice is to not be afraid to ask those questions. Challenge what is assumed to be fixed. We start with questions: What is the mission? What is the role of design in unlocking new potential? How would we measure success? What do we aspire to that transcends the project itself? How can we shift markets and public expectations? These questions give us a north star to orient our work toward.
