About the award
The Associates Award recognizes Associate AIA members who are outstanding leaders, creative thinkers, and who have made significant contributions to their communities and the architecture profession.
Jeremy Gentile, Assoc. AIA, is a stalwart champion for the profession whose unwavering focus is trained on elevating students and emerging professionals. His advocacy efforts parallel his design aptitude, evident across a gradient of project types, from large-scale infrastructure and master planning to hospitality interiors and designed objects.
An interest in leadership was stoked within Gentile at an early age. He eagerly assumed his first position with AIAS during his freshman year at the Illinois Institute of Technology. The chapter’s leaders tapped him to join them in planning the AIAS’ Forum 2013 in Chicago, and he envisioned and directed the graphics, branding, and marketing strategy for the conference. That early experience encouraged Gentile to pursue leadership excellence, and he eventually rose to president of the chapter and, later, director of the Midwest quadrant. As a director, he oversaw 42 AIAS regional chapters and ushered in a period of heightened engagement and membership growth.
After graduating, Gentile found a new community and outlet for leadership in AIA. He was recruited as regional associate director to represent Illinois on the National Associates Committee. He also founded the AIA Illinois Emerging Professionals Network, the state’s first significant connection between early-career professionals and young architects. As this network’s founding chair, he helped institute robust programming in the Emerging Professionals Summit and a series of Firmside Chats, both of which received support through grants from the College of Fellows.
As a designer, Gentile has demonstrated excellence with firms such as Ross Barney Architects, where he served as the construction administrator for the Lincoln Park Zoo’s new welcome center, celebrated with the Chicago Athenaeum’s American Architecture Award in 2020. For Vladimir Radutny Architects, Gentile was an architectural designer for a series of new duplexes and single-story units in Ukrainian Village, one of Chicago’s oldest neighborhoods. A story drives his work, a response to a community, or a desire to leave a lasting impact.
A fierce advocate and adroit convener, Gentile’s plentiful contributions have greatly supported his peers representing the next generation of architects. He leads by doing, and his actions will doubtlessly inspire a new batch of AIA volunteer leaders and civic champions to follow suit.
Read more at AIA.org.
