Ted Shelton, FAIA, and Tricia Stuth, FAIA, receive the William Strickland Award; Dr. Carroll Van West receives the Samuel Morgan Award
AIA Tennessee is proud to announce the recipients of its 2026 Achievement Awards, honoring three individuals whose careers have made significant and lasting contributions to architecture, education, preservation, and the built environment across Tennessee.
Ted Shelton, FAIA, and Tricia Stuth, FAIA, were named co-recipients of the 2026 William Strickland Achievement Award, while Carroll Van West, PhD, received the 2026 Samuel Morgan Lifetime Service Award.
The recipients were recognized during AIA Tennessee’s 2026 Conference on Architecture, Design in Tension, held August 12–14 at The Westin Chattanooga.
Ted Shelton, FAIA, and Tricia Stuth, FAIA
2026 William Strickland Achievement Award
The William Strickland Achievement Award recognizes individuals whose careers and contributions have had a significant impact on architecture in Tennessee.
For nearly three decades, Shelton and Stuth have built a body of work that bridges architectural practice, education, research, advocacy, and community engagement. As co-founders of Knoxville-based curb and professors at the University of Tennessee College of Architecture + Design, the pair have established a distinctive model of practice in which teaching, scholarship, design, and advocacy continually inform one another.
Their work has helped advance sustainable design in Tennessee, including projects that earned the state’s first AIA COTE Top Ten recognition, AIA National Small Project Award, and AIA National Housing Award. Their Tennessee projects collectively have received three AIA Gulf States awards, five AIA Tennessee awards and 12 AIA East Tennessee awards.
Their influence extends well beyond built work. Both are tenured professors at the University of Tennessee, where they have connected architectural education to real-world issues ranging from housing and neighborhood revitalization to sustainability and land-use policy. Their teaching has received eight national awards from AIA and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture. Shelton was elevated to the AIA College of Fellows in 2013 and Stuth in 2017, both for their contributions to architectural education.
Their work through curb reflects an intentionally broad definition of architectural practice—combining design with research, engaged teaching, self-initiated development, advocacy and public programming. Projects such as Ghost Houses, Silver Place Studio, Layers, Frugal Farmhouse, New Norris House and Old Briar demonstrate a sustained commitment to thoughtful design, adaptive reuse, environmental responsibility, care for place, and collaborative teams.
As their nomination stated, Shelton and Stuth “embody the Strickland ideal of transcending practice, teaching, and scholarship.”
Carroll Van West, PhD
2026 Samuel Morgan Lifetime Service Award
The Samuel Morgan Lifetime Service Award recognizes extraordinary contributions to architecture in Tennessee, including those made by individuals outside the architectural profession. Dr. Carroll Van West was selected in the non-architect category for his extensive contributions to Tennessee architecture, history and historic preservation.
West has devoted his career to documenting, interpreting and preserving Tennessee’s architectural and cultural heritage. His influence spans scholarship, public history, historic preservation and hands-on preservation efforts across the state.
His publications have become important resources for understanding Tennessee’s built environment. He served as editor-in-chief of the 1,193-page Tennessee Encyclopedia of History & Culture and authored Tennessee’s Historic Landscapes: A Traveler’s Guide, Tennessee History: The Land, the People, and the Culture, and Nashville Architecture: A Guide to the City.
His 2015 book, Nashville Architecture, is described in his nomination as a comprehensive survey of the city’s historic and contemporary architecture, documenting not only significant buildings but also the clients, architects, engineers and builders responsible for shaping Nashville.
Beyond his scholarship, West’s preservation work has touched historic places throughout Tennessee, and his decades of research, writing, teaching and advocacy have helped ensure that the state’s architectural heritage is not simply preserved but understood and shared with future generations.
“Each of these recipients demonstrates the extraordinary ways individuals can influence the built environment,” said Chad Polk, president of AIA Tennessee. “Ted and Tricia have expanded the boundaries of practice by connecting design, education, research and advocacy, while Dr. West has dedicated his career to documenting and protecting the places that tell Tennessee’s story. Their collective impact will be felt for generations.”
AIA Tennessee congratulates Ted Shelton, FAIA; Tricia Stuth, FAIA; and Carroll Van West, PhD, and thanks them for their exceptional contributions to Tennessee’s architecture, communities and built environment.