EmaLee Davidson, Nabil Davidson (both MArch '26) named to the 2026 Metropolis Future100

UCLA Architecture and Urban Design students EmaLee Davidson and Nabil Davidson (both MArch '26) are among 25 Master of Architecture candidates across the United States and Canada named to this year’s Metropolis Future100, produced by Metropolis magazine.

Each year, the magazine sets out to designate the top graduating architecture and interior design students in the U.S. and Canada, seeking nominations from faculty and mentors across North America. The jury chooses honorees across each of four categories: graduate and undergraduate students in architecture and interior design.

"These are the top architecture graduate students in the United States and Canada as selected by the Metropolis team," the magazine writes.

AUD has a proud lineage of Future100 honorees: EmaLee and Nabil are preceded by 2025 winners Adam Cardenas, Camille Castillo, and Zirui Wang (all MArch '25); 2024 AUD winners Pingting Li, Kinamee Rhodes, and Qing Yin (all MArch '24); as well as 2023 AUD honorees Sijie Ji, Wanying Li, and Clytie Hoi Ting Mak (all MArch '23).

"EmaLee has a unique capacity to conceptualize any brief towards unexpected trajectories, resulting in a body of work which deviates from the predictable, the norm, and the superficially novel," writes Kutan Ayata, AUD Vice Chair and Associate Professor. "Her ability to synthesize abstract concepts with material realities allows her to fully mobilize her agency as a designer in responding to complex spatial and social demands."

"Nabil’s capacity to operate in emerging technologies of mediation is not like a technician but rather like a tinkerer of digital interfaces, which allows him to willfully bridge conceptual and technical explorations," Ayata observes. "His discipline and rigor in creatively problem-solving are unparalleled."

Browse the entire roster of this year’s Future 100 honorees via the Metropolis feature.