NOMAS at UCLA takes top honors in national NOMA design competition

NOMAS at UCLA recently earned top prize in the annual Barbara G. Laurie Student Design Competition, organized by the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), with proposal "Anchored Corners."

NOMAS at UCLA is the student cohort of the National Organization of Minority Architects, or NOMA. NOMA and NOMAS chapters across the country ​​seek to advance and support the education and careers of those who have been historically under-represented in the field of architecture and allied professions.

The NOMAS at UCLA team, alongside students from more than 40 chapters, presented competition proposals at the October 2025 NOMA annual conference in Kansas City.

This year's Barbara G. Laurie competition brief, titled "A Tale of Two Kansas Cities," asked teams to reimagine one of two historic sites: Minnesota Avenue, on the western, Kansas-state side of Kansas City, and Paseo West, deep within the eastern, Missouri-state portion of the city. Students were challenged to create designs that honor the past, respond to present needs, and envision a more connected, equitable future for these communities by designing multi-generational housing, a cultural center, and a self-selected program.

"Anchored Corners" presents a mixed-use housing and community project on Kansas City’s East Side that confronts the lasting spatial, economic, and social consequences of redlining, displacement, and infrastructure-driven segregation. The site sits within a landscape shaped by decades of racialized disinvestment—where highways, industrial zones, and car-dominated streets replaced once-thriving Black neighborhoods. Rather than treating revitalization as replacement, the project asks how housing and public space can become tools of repair.

Conceived as a "city within a building," "Anchored Corners" organizes the block around interconnected modules, each acting as an anchor where community, ecology, and culture intersect. Rotated and staggered volumes break from the surrounding industrial grid, expanding sidewalks into plazas and carving human-scaled paths through the site. Public programs include childcare spaces, art gallery, library, cafe, grocery store, a barbecue restaurant, and a jazz lounge, distributed across the site and integrated into housing. This layering, the team notes, enables both public activation and public safety.

Looking toward the future, the project is supported by a community land trust structure that enables long-term affordability, with a mix of deeply affordable, flexible rental, and limited market-rate units.

"'Anchored Corners' is not simply a housing proposal," writes the NOMAS at UCLA team. "It is an urban framework for healing. By integrating housing, culture, ecology, and economy, the project reinvests value back into the neighborhood, anchoring a resilient, connected, and inclusive future for Kansas City’s East Side."

"Anchored Corners" also optimizes a 30-foot natural slope as a spatial asset: circulation weaves from rooftop to ground, and everyday walks become "an experience of curiosity, discovery, and social encounter rather than mere utility," the team observes. The project also looks to ecology and sustainability: Green roofs, rainwater collection, greywater reuse, and native planting restore ecological function to a formerly industrial site, while roofs double as terraces, gardens, and gathering spaces.

This year's NOMAS at UCLA team includes Georgie Ampudia (BA '26), Vazken Armatuni (MArch '27), Dania Castillo (MArch '26), Harry [Dong Ho] Huh (MArch '27), Jaewon Lee (MArch '28), Gabby Liu (MArch '26), Aida Shirazi (MArch '26), Yanjie Zhao (MArch '26), and Bella Zheng (MArch '26). The team is advised by AUD Vice Chair Kutan Ayata.