Zena Howard — 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award Recipient

The UVA School of Architecture and the members of the Dean’s Advisory Board are pleased to announce that Zena Howard, FAIA, NOMA, LEED AP (BArch ‘88) has been selected as the 2025 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient. The award recognizes exceptional graduates from the School of Architecture who have demonstrated creativity, innovation, leadership, and vision through their distinguished body of work, within the professional, academic, civic, or artistic realms, as well as their service to the University of Virginia. 

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“Each year the Dean’s Advisory Board is challenged to select one honoree from a list of exceptional candidates for the Distinguished Alumni Award,” shared Margaret Cavenagh, AIA, LEED AP and Chair of the board through July 2025. “This year, amid this divided and fractured period in the U.S., we are honored to acknowledge Zena Howard, a friend and colleague who has spent her career connecting people to one another, to their cultures, and to their communities. Zena leads with compassion and grace, uplifting those around her and, in the process of realizing her seminal projects, has changed lives.”

Born in Texas, Howard spent her childhood moving with her family to Baltimore, then Syracuse, and finally, North Carolina, making her keenly aware, even at a young age of built environments and their impacts on people’s health and wellbeing. “As an African American family in the 1960s and 1970s, we didn’t necessarily have a lot of choice in where we could live or what kind of housing we could move into. In hindsight, those circumstances are probably what shaped my ambition to be an architect,” Howard recalled. These experiences were paired with a longtime love of drawing, of space, and of place — collectively guiding Howard to pursue her undergraduate degree in architecture at the University of Virginia. Upon graduating in 1988, Howard worked in Pittsburgh before returning to North Carolina, drawn there by the opportunity to work for the Freelon Group, the second largest African American owned practice in the country at the time, led by renowned architect Phil Freelon.

Over the next two decades, Howard rose to partner at the Freelon Group, which eventually merged with the global design practice Perkins&Will in 2014. Three years later, Howard took on a leadership role as Principal and Managing Director of Perkins&Will's North Carolina practice, before her current role as the firm’s Global Cultural and Civic Practice Chair. With Perkins&Will, Howard has shaped a distinguished career defined by visionary, complex, and culturally significant projects—like Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.; North Carolina Freedom Park in Raleigh, North Carolina; The Motown Museum Expansion in Detroit; and Destination Crenshaw in Los Angeles. 

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These projects deftly and experientially navigate social issues of dignity, equity, and justice in cultural and civic places. Howard has been recognized as a citizen architect for shaping architecture through Remembrance Design™, a design process that responds to inequity and injustice by restoring lost cultural connections, honoring collective memory and history, and embracing the emotional connection between people and spaces. Her architectural works manifest a design experience that is rich in a distinct sense of authenticity and sensitivity to culture.

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Described as a project in “cultural re-envisioning,” Howard spent ten years shepherding the National Museum of African American History and Culture from idea to realization as the project’s Senior Project Manager. A highly complex and collaborative project, she led a multi-firm and multi-stakeholder team, including four architectural firms and 28 other design consultants, coordinating pre-design, programming, exhibit design, and construction. The award-winning museum, which opened in 2016, provides a comprehensive and dedicated space to explore and celebrate the rich and complex history of African Americans and their profound impact on American culture and history. 

Reflecting on her role in this significant work, Howard shared, “Rarely in one’s lifetime does the opportunity arise to design a landmark building on a treasured national site that represents one’s own culture. Furthermore, this project was not just about designing a building, it was also about forming some of the most enduring relationships with my team, my client, and the people this project honors and represents.”

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One of Howard’s current projects evolves her capacity and builds on her significant experience to lead complex projects — she is project principal for the new Bezos Learning Center at one of the Smithsonian’s most visited institutions, the National Air and Space Museum. The Bezos Learning Center, which is anticipated to open in 2027, will invite learners to explore the universe and aviation through multi-day experiences in non-traditional classrooms, collaboration hubs, and a studio—all of which support immersive and innovative STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics) learning, prioritizing access to underserved communities. 

While Howard’s architectural projects reveal her remarkable design expertise, she is equally lauded for her passion and leadership as mentor, team builder, and strategist. Described by her peers, clients, and project partners as open, genuine, personable, empathetic, humble, giving, nimble and deeply intelligent, Howard has served as a role model for many young architects and is a trusted partner for the communities she works alongside. Perkins&Will CEO Phil Harrison summed up the quality of her character as attributing to her extensive success. He shared, “[Zena] has an extra dimension [because] she sees the richness of humanity.” 

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Howard has been recognized throughout her career with numerous honors and awards including receiving a Citizen Architect Award in 2020 and CEO of the Year Award in 2019. She is a Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, a member of the National Organization of Minority Architects, and a LEED Accredited Professional. Howard has taught at North Carolina State University’s College of Design, the University of Washington, and the University of Maryland, and has given lectures at numerous universities across the United States.

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She is a founding member of Perkins&Will’s global Diversity and Inclusion Council and a member of the firm’s Board of Directors. Her professional commitment to service has been broad but has also remained focused locally in Durham where she works and is the Chair of the Board of Directors of Downtown Durham, Inc. and Co-Chair of the Downtown Cultural Roadmap Planning Group. At UVA, she currently serves on the University’s Foundation Board (since 2023) and the School of Architecture’s Foundation Board (since 2022). Howard has also been a School of Architecture Dean’s Advisory Board member (2018 – 2022) and a member of the Board of Directors for the UVA Alumni Association (2015 – 2022).

“Throughout her career, Zena Howard’s distinguished path and her remarkable body of work have been in the service of strengthening public wellbeing and human dignity through design,” said Dean Malo A. Hutson, “Moreover, her visionary leadership and compassionate character are uplifting, reminding us of the many ways that architects can facilitate community empowerment and celebrate rich cultural connections to place. She embodies the values of citizenry that UVA embraces, and it is a great honor to recognize her as a distinguished alumna of our school.”