The decade-old Aydelott fellowship awarded four $20,000 travel grants and a $5,000 writing prize this year; former RECORD editor Robert Ivy joined the program as trust advisor and consultant.
Faith Hilvert won the $5,000 Aydelott Prize for an essay titled “The Heart of the Artist Revealed in His Work.”
Robert Ivy joined the Aydelott Trust in 2026 as advisor and consultant, succeeding Reb Haizlip in overseeing the awards.
# What the 2026 Aydelott awards cover
Program announced its 2026 recipients: four travel grant winners and one writing-prize winner. The awards are intended for undergraduate architecture students at four Southern universities and combine funded travel with a required post-travel essay.
# Who received the awards
Four Aydelott Travel Awards were granted—one student at each participating school. Each travel award carries $20,000 for the student to design and carry out a travel itinerary focused on four architectural projects anywhere in the world. The 2026 travel award winners are:
After travel, each awardee must submit an essay documenting observations and critical reflections. From those submissions the jury selects one essay for the Aydelott Prize.
Faith Hilvert of the Fay Jones School won the 2026 Aydelott Prize, a $5,000 award, for her essay "The Heart of the Artist Revealed in His Work," which examines four homes that architects designed for themselves.
# Program leadership and funding
For 2026, Robert Ivy joined the Aydelott Trust as advisor and consultant. Ivy is the former editor in chief of Architectural Record (1996–2010) and succeeded architect Reb Haizlip in overseeing both the Travel Awards and the Aydelott Prize.
# in practice
Each year the program grants four travel awards, each tied to a participating school. Recipients plan travel-focused research examining four architectural projects. The expectation is a structured itinerary and a written response after travel. One of the submitted essays receives the additional writing-based prize.
The travel awards and prize are among the largest travel grants available to undergraduate architecture students in the U.S., with the travel award set at $20,000 and the prize at $5,000.
# Why this matters for students and schools
The Aydelott awards fund substantive, site-based research rather than short residencies or conference travel. The combination of a substantial travel budget and a writing requirement incentivizes both on-the-ground inquiry and reflective documentation, offering recipients a chance to develop research portfolios grounded in built work.
The program continues to operate out of a legacy fund established by a practicing architect, with institutional management through a regional community foundation and an academic host at Mississippi State University.
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