Architecture Student Receives Competitive AIA Chicago Diversity Scholarship

Less than an hour after telling an American Institute of Architects scholarship committee what fuels his interest in the field, Cody Lopez (B.ARCH. 3rd Year) received a call. The committee head promptly informed him he had won a coveted award that empowers a select few diverse and talented architecture students throughout Chicago.

“I was somewhat surprised and excited, and incredibly thankful,” says Lopez, who grew up in Chicago’s Belmont-Cragin neighborhood on the city’s Northwest Side.

Lopez was awarded the 2026 AIA Chicago Foundation Diversity Scholarship, which, according to the organization’s website, is awarded to students who “exemplify the qualities of an architectural changemaker—someone who drives progress in the profession by championing design excellence, advancing social justice, pioneering technical innovation, or energizing the field in meaningful ways.”

The Diversity Scholarship has been awarded to a pair of Chicago-area students—one undergraduate and one graduate student—every year since 2019. Of the 16 students who have received the scholarship, 11 have been Illinois Institute of Technology College of Architecture students. Recipients of the scholarship receive $10,000, which is split across two years, and are also paired with a mentor who is an AIA member.

Lopez says he began to get a clearer picture of his future career path after arriving at the College of Architecture and working at Human Scale, a Chicago-based nonprofit that designs and creates community spaces in historically disinvested neighborhoods across the city.

“Architecture is not limited to the towering skyscrapers you see downtown. It can be a doorknob, a community space, or your local library,” Lopez says.

Lopez, who is now an assistant program manager at Human Scale, is helping to design what could be built on a large vacant lot at the corner of 26th Street and Kostner Avenue in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. He says that his favorite part of the project so far has been meeting with community members to garner ideas for the space.

“The community members had this expectation that we already had a whole idea for the space in mind. But, what it became was a dialog: We asked them what they wanted to see, what they needed,” Lopez says. “This is still something I think about....What I want to do with my professional career is work with communities connecting them through spaces that feel like their own.”

Lopez relayed his recent realizations to the scholarship committee.

“Instead of skyscrapers, I want to create more community spaces,” Lopez says. Through his role at Human Scale, he has also helped with the design of community gardens in Chicago’s Pilsen and Bronzeville neighborhoods in partnership with the ACE Mentor Program, teaching and guiding high school students who have an interest in architecture, construction, and engineering.

Lopez, who interned at Perkins & Will as a high school senior, has also received the Samuel Horwitz Memorial Scholarship through the College of Architecture and is an Illinois Tech Camras scholar.