At this year’s AIA Convention in Boston, the most urgent and electrifying moment came not from a product showcase or panel on AI—but from a speech that challenged the very soul of the profession. Bryan C. Lee Jr., NOMA, FAIA, founder of Colloqate Design and newly elected president of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), took the stage to accept the prestigious 2025 Whitney M. Young Jr. Award with a rallying cry: “Design is an act of protest.”
Lee’s keynote cut through the polished optimism of the convention floor with radical clarity. “For every injustice in this world,” he declared, “there is a design, a plan, an architecture built to maintain and sustain it.” In other words: oppression isn’t accidental—it’s architected. And unless designers commit to undoing those architectures, they are complicit in perpetuating them.
The Design Justice Framework
Positioning himself not just as an architect but as an organizer, abolitionist, and reconstructionist, Lee laid out a vision for design justice that is both philosophical and actionable. It begins, he said, with recognizing that architecture is never neutral. Design is always in service of power—either to uphold or to upend it.
“Design justice,” Lee explained, “requires an unyielding faith in the power and potential of a just society.” It means creating spaces that affirm the identities of marginalized communities, dismantling systems of exclusion, and radically reimagining who architecture is for. “Design Justice in practice provides us frameworks to challenge and disrupt the privilege and power structures that use architecture and design to maintain or extend power,” he said. “At its best, design justice opens radical pathways to get to the root of the cause of our challenges and design spaces for racial, social, and cultural liberation.”
A Legacy Reawakened
Lee’s remarks echoed the legendary legendary 1968 AIA address by civil rights leader Whitney M. Young Jr., who famously chastised architects for their “thunderous silence” during the Civil Rights Movement. Quoting Young’s call for “skill and imagination and creativity to change” the status quo, Lee positioned his speech not as a rupture but as a revival.
“Young’s speech,” Lee noted, “stands as ever present and relevant today as it did over 50 years ago.” And just as Young challenged architects to take a stand in 1968, Lee urged today’s practitioners to do the same—particularly in the face of global displacement, racialized violence, Indigenous land loss, and climate collapse.
“In this critical moment, we can stand with the landless and those facing systematic erasure from places in Gaza and around the world”, he said. “We can advocate for land to be returned to Indigenous and disinherited communities and transition away from harmful energy practices. Young’s speech stands as ever present and relevant today as it did over 50 years ago.”
Against Hostile Architecture, For Liberatory Spaces
Lee did not mince words in identifying where the profession must divest. “We can reject design that disproportionately harms Black, Brown, Indigenous, and Asian communities,” he said, “divesting from prisons, hostile architecture, and over-policing.” In their place, he called for “community-led, culturally responsive architecture”—spaces of care, resistance, and collective power.
This shift, he insisted, is not merely aspirational—it is imperative. “We are not at a loss for know-how or resources,” he reminded the audience. “We are at a loss for the will.”
The Moral Precision of Language and Form
The closing passages of Lee’s speech moved into a lyrical, almost spiritual register. He spoke of the precision of language—“sharp enough to cut through clouds of moral ambiguity”—and called on architects to let form follow fiction: to build not just from program or function, but from the stories and cultures that define us.
“There is power,” he said, “in the places and spaces where our cultures are affirmed, our stories are valued, and our language is shared.” His vision for architecture is one not of prestige or permanence, but of protest, repair, and reimagination.
A Profession at the Crossroads
For an industry often caught in the inertia of aesthetics and market forces, Lee’s address was a jolt to the system—a reminder that architecture is never innocent. It either reinforces injustice or resists it. And resistance, Lee made clear, requires more than good intentions. It requires thunder. “Let us be thunderous and outspoken,” he urged, “distinguishing ourselves by our social and civic contributions to the cause of liberation for all.”
In a time when the world is quite literally on fire, Lee’s call is as clear as it is uncomfortable: The time is now—now is the time.
Bryan C. Lee Jr., NOMA, FAIA, LEED AP BD+C, was the recipient of the 2025 AIA Whitney M. Young Jr. Award. Lee is a transformative architect, educator, and activist whose career has redefined the role of design in fostering social and spatial justice. As the founder and director of Colloqate Design and a leading voice in the Design Justice movement, Lee championed architecture as a tool for dismantling systems of oppression and building spaces of reparation and liberation. Lee is the National Organization of Minority Architects 2025-2026 president.
