Distinguished jury to choose 2023 Design Excellence Award Winners
Design excellence in architecture requires balancing the functional goals and artistic vision of a building or landscape to inspire people and support a great community—and, at every scale, it offers the power to help sustain our environmental, social, and economic vitality well into the future.
Montgomery County’s Design Excellence initiatives celebrate architecture and landscapes that make everyday life more beautiful and create spaces that enhance social interaction as well as fulfill specific functions. The annual Design Excellence Awards spotlight our county’s very best designs, and submissions are now open through July 17, 2023. Submit contenders for the two select Awards, one for outstanding Architectural, Urban Design and Landscape design, and the other for Residential Design. All submissions must be built in the County over the past ten years. The Jury’s selections for this year’s Design Excellence Awards will be presented on the evening of October 19 at the Wheaton Headquarters Building at 2425 Reedie Drive, Wheaton, MD.
Each year, the Planning Department selects an independent jury of developers, planners, and architects to choose our county’s best work without input from the Planning Department or other county agencies. This five-member jury is highly acclaimed and respected among regional and national peers from both academic and development circles. This year’s jury includes some of our region’s best designers and implementers who understand the impacts of great design on community wellbeing. Some of them have even been past winners of these prestigious awards.
This year’s jury includes:
Evan Goldman – Evan is the Vice President of Land Acquisitions and Development for EYA. He brings more than 20 years of mixed-use and multi-family development experience, not only in sourcing new deals but also shepherding projects through the development process. Prior to joining EYA, he was a Vice President of Development at Federal Realty Investment Trust in Rockville, MD, where he was primarily responsible for managing the development of Pike & Rose, a 24-acre, 3.4 million–square foot, award-winning, mixed-use neighborhood in North Bethesda. He was previously a partner at the Holladay Corporation, an urban infill mixed-use development company in Washington, DC, and an associate for Tishman Speyer Properties in New York City. Evan holds an MBA in Real Estate and Finance from the Wharton Business School and a B.S. in Design and Environmental Analysis from Cornell University. He has guest-lectured at Cornell University, Georgetown University, the Catholic University of America, and the University of Maryland College Park. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of the Urban Land Institute Washington and was a founding board member of Friends of White Flint. He received the 2012 Livable Communities Leadership Award from the Washington, DC–based Coalition for Smarter Growth.
Marina Khoury, RA, LEED AP, CNU – Marina is an expert in sustainable urban redevelopment, regional and master planning, transit-oriented developments, and form-based codes. As a partner at DPZ CoDesign, she has been Director of its Washington, DC–area office since 2007. A licensed architect and fluent in several languages, she has worked on the design and implementation of projects in the United States, Canada, Australia, Europe, and the Middle East, including ground-breaking new codes around the world to mandate resilient urbanism. She speaks widely on issues related to Smart Growth and to affordable, sustainable, and walkable communities, including at the United Nations. She co-led the development of the successful Miami21 code, the country’s first form-based zoning code, and her strong track-record of getting such codes adopted has created a predictable framework for resilient places. Marina is one of 20 members on the Expert Committee of Global Forum on Human Settlements (UNEP-GFHS) International Green Model City (IGMC) Initiative under the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). She served as a board member of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) DC chapter from 2007 to 2012, and she was made a CNU fellow in 2022. She served as chair of the executive board of Smart Growth America’s Form-Based Code Institute (FBCI) from 2018 to 2021 and is a member of the Lambda Alpha International George Washington Chapter, a member of the Urban Guild, and a LEED Accredited professional.
Georgeanne Matthews, PhD – Georgeanne specializes in public design and her portfolio comprises the institutional architecture that fortifies a community’s identity and sense of place. She joined the University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation in 2022 as an assistant professor of architecture to focus on her research in spatializing memory, community development, and design of the public realm. Her passion for designing resilient communities is informed by a diverse professional and pedagogical resume, including having previously served as interim Director of Urban Practice at the Catholic University of America. She began her architecture career at Grimm and Parker Architects and later at Moody Nolan Architects, in both the Nashville and Washington, DC, offices, and has since managed several real estate development projects. In addition, Georgeanne is the founder and director of the City Lab Urban Design Collective in Washington, DC, a nonprofit group that assists neighborhood design projects to support underserved residents. Georgeanne is committed to research and architectural projects that focus on creating just and resilient communities for 21st century living, while preserving the history and character of place.
Mark McInturff, FAIA – Mark is a native of Washington, DC, and received his bachelor’s degree in architecture from the University of Maryland School of Architecture in 1972, as part of its first graduating class, and has taught at the University of Maryland since 1980. Currently an annual visiting critic with a focus on design competitions, he was a visiting critic at the Catholic University of America’s School of Architecture and Planning from 1995 to 2004, and he was elevated to the College of Fellows of the AIA in 2000 and made a University of Maryland Kea Professor in 2003. Today, his five-person firm McInturff Architects works on residential, commercial, and small institutional projects; its work has been frequently published, both locally and nationally, and received more than 200 regional and national design awards. It has been the subject of three monographs, Mark McInturff: House Design (2006), In House: McInturff Architects (2013), and HomeWork: New Houses | Changed Houses (2022).
Lee Quill, FAIA – Lee is a founding principal of Cunningham | Quill Architects in Washington, D.C. and has over 35 years of experience in urban design and master planning and in higher education, residential, infill mixed-use, commercial, and institutional architecture. A nationally recognized leader in community engagement and design, he has served on the DC Mayoral Task Force on Transit-Oriented Development, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government’s 2050 Initiative (Region Forward and Metropolitan Development Policy Committee), and the Urban Design Advisory Committee, and the Carlyle-East Eisenhower Design Review Board in the City of Alexandria, Virginia. He also served as the Design Team Lead for national AIA Sustainable Design Assessment Teams in Colorado (2011) and Washington (2012) and has been a juror for the EPA National Awards for Smart Growth Achievement, the URBAN LAB, and the 2022 APA National Capital Area Chapter Planning Awards, among others. Lee has received numerous design awards including from the AIA, the Congress for the New Urbanism, the Washington Architectural Foundation, and the APA Virginia.
About the author
Paul Mortensen is the Senior Urban Designer in the Director’s Office at the Montgomery County Planning Department and leads the Design Excellence program. He is a registered architect in California, Washington and Maryland, is a LEED-Accredited Professional, and is a member of the Congress for New Urbanism.
