September 12, 2025
Adjunct Faculty Member and Alumna Named Finalist for AIA Social Justice Award
Converge Architecture, co-founded by Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture Adjunct Professor Annabell Ren (B.ARCH. ’14), is celebrating this year with a flourish: two 2025 American Institute of Architects Chicago awards.
Ren’s project, an African cultural project in Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood, is a finalist for the 2025 Roberta Feldman Architecture for Social Justice Award. The Feldman Award was established in 2020 to honor excellence in built projects and design programs guided by the conviction that access to high quality architecture is not a privilege, but a human right. The award celebrates designers who work pro bono or at below-market rate, and it comes with a $2,500 prize.
Titled the “African Heritage Hut” and designed by Ren, the project offers shaded relief for visitors to the North Lawndale Historical and Cultural Society Garden. Ren participated in the Chicago Sukkah Design Festival that was hosted on the garden grounds in 2022, so when the organization asked her team to add a culturally appropriate place for shade, she jumped at the opportunity.
“A lot of communities don’t have the budget to work with an architect, so I work on a pro bono project every year,” Ren says. “The Cultural Society wanted an iconic structure for the neighborhood. The design is inspired by a traditional African hut, featuring a skylight to connect visitors with nature and a hearth to serve as a gathering place and resting area. The hut’s plan is based on the Adinkrahene symbol, which consists of three concentric circles symbolizing charisma, leadership, and greatness.”
Ren opened her first architecture firm, New Office, with her husband, Steven Karvelius (B.ARCH. ’14), and fellow alumnus Elliott Riggen (B.ARCH. ’16) in 2020. Their first project, a renovation of a Lincoln Park neighborhood condo, won the 2023 AIA Chicago Citation of Merit award.
The studio merged with another firm, Bureau Gemmell, founded by Lynsey Sorrell (M.ARCH. ’02), to become Converge Architecture.
The African Heritage Hut was Ren’s project, while Sorrell and co-founder Riggen led a renovation of a century-old warehouse on the city’s near West Side that is a finalist in the AIA Chicago’s Design Excellence Award—Medium.
The awards will be presented at AIA Chicago’s Designight 2025 on September 18.