2026 IA Diversity in Design Scholarship Winners

The 2026 IA Diversity in Design Scholarship awardees represent the diverse perspectives and experiences needed to build a design future that values the diverse communities we live in, work in, and design for. Through the IIDA Foundation, IA Interior Architects provides one $5,000 scholarship, one $3,000 scholarship, and four $500 scholarships to support these students in their design education journeys. Building a better design future starts with creating a more diverse design community — and each of these students give us a glimpse into just how bright that future is.

Join us in congratulating the first place winner Haruko Utsuki, Student IIDA of the New York School of Interior Design, second place winner Samia Hilton, Student IIDA of Texas State University, and honorees Zephyr Corchado Gil-Phillips, Student IIDA, University of Texas at Arlington; Aneisha Muhammad from The London Metropolitan University, Leta Pham, Student IIDA, San Jose State University, and Connor Trang, Student IIDA, of Florida International University.

Read Utsuki and Hilton’s winning essays below addressing the question, “How can we as designers and architects ensure an authentic creative process, one that incorporates creative thinking and sensitivity to both representation and the lived experience, while using AI technology?”

First Place
“Finding Balance Between Human Creativity and AI”
By: Haruko Utsuki — $5,000

The prompt for this essay could not be more timely for me. As a mature design student pursuing interior design as a second career, I naturally gravitate toward a manual, hands-on creative process-hand sketching, drafting, and rendering. My inspirations come from lived experiences: places I have traveled, details I have observed in daily life, and memories that shape how I perceive space. This approach has always worked for me. And yet, I increasingly feel vulnerable in a world where Al can accelerate, influence, and even replace parts of the creative process with alarming speed.

This semester, while working on a major hotel design project, I fully embraced my traditional creative methods. I visited the building site in person, absorbing the mood of the street, the materiality, and the atmosphere. I carried these impressions into my floor plan and drew from architectural details I had recently seen in Italy. Although I modeled the project digitally, I illustrated my final renderings by hand on my iPad-a balance between technology and tactile process that felt right to me.

Middle-aged Asian woman with straight chin-length brown bob haircut, wearing a white collared shirt against a neutral gray background. — **Haruko Utsuki, Student IIDA**
New York School of Interior Design

However, when I saw my classmates' final presentations-polished, hyper-realistic renderings produced through a more Al assisted workflow, I felt defeated. Their images had a level of finish that my illustrations, no matter how thoughtful, could never replicate. Several classmates shared that they sourced online imagery for inspiration and then adapted it just enough to fit the prompt. For days afterward, I felt uneasy, even outdated. Was the design process I trusted becoming obsolete?

This anxiety intensified when I heard about an Al-generated singer climbing the music charts. It made me question whether people increasingly preferred the speed and spectacle of digital production over the nuance and imperfection of human creation. As designers, our role is to serve clients with diverse values-including those who live entirely in the digital world. It was unsettling to think that my preferences might not matter. But then something shifted. I received positive feedback on my project-feedback that emphasized the authenticity, sensitivity, and narrative embedded in my process. It reminded me that in both art and design, authenticity has always endured. Lived experience, emotional intelligence, and personal perspective are things Al cannot replicate.

In addressing the prompt, I believe the key to maintaining an authentic creative process-while using Al lies in balance. Designers and architects must continue cultivating inspiration from their own lives, observations, and experiences. These human sources create work that is unique, credible, and genuinely connected to the real world. At the same time, Al can be used responsibly to accelerate certain steps, expand visual exploration, and offer supplementary ideas, as long as the designer remains the author, and not the follower of the work.

Authenticity is not lost unless we abandon it. With intention and awareness, we can use Al as a tool while staying grounded in our craft, our values, and our lived experiences.

Second Place
“From Prompt to Place: Protecting Meaning in Design”
By: Samia Hilton — $3,000

The most important thing I learned as a junior interior design student is that a strong concept is not created overnight, but that it is created with intention. I learned in my studio class that design is not just about creating a beautiful project, but about a process of researching, iterating, and making mindful decisions. As Al gains popularity within the creative industries, the question is not whether it generates visually impressive renders, but how designers can use it without flattening culture, erasing lived experience, or losing authorship of their work.

Authentic design must be rooted first in the needs, experiences, and voices of users. Designers should question first: who will be using this space? What is the desired emotional and functional result? What is the social-historical context? And when that is done through site observation, user research, precedents studies, material studies, and all the other foundational work, then Al can become a support for ideation rather than a replacement for thinking.

Smiling young woman with long center-parted straight hair, long lashes, white top and small pendant necklace on a pale backdrop. — **Samia Hilton, Student IIDA**
Texas State University

This matters because Al tends to show inspiration images of spaces based on patterns it has seen to be the most popular. If we don't give it real direction, it will usually default to the same "safe" look and the same narrow idea of who a space is for. That can make a concept look polished, but ii might not match the actual community or daily life the project is meant to support. Interior design is about designing for real people in real places, so we have to bring that reality into the prompt of budget, climate, accessibility needs, culture, and how the space will really be used. And even if an Al image looks beautiful, it still has to face the same question we'd ask in critique: does this actually fit the people who will live, work, heal, or gather here? If the answer is no, then it's not good design yet. Good design has a rhythm. Good design makes use of productive friction: feedback, revision, critique or uncertainty that pushes concepts toward maturity. While Al can compress the early stages of exploration but it must not compress judgment. Don't be too impressed by the first interesting image the Al puts out. The first image is like a rough draft. This encourages the discipline of a design way of thinking that does not consider purely aesthetic aspects in decision-making.

Finally, transparency strengthens integrity. If Al was used to help ideate or visualize your concept, be sure to disclose it within your presentation or portfolio. A narrative about research, the community, and the designers reasoning clarifies that this concerns the values and responsibilities of the person using the tool. This is not about the tool itself. Al could expand the range of what is possible in interior design. However, designers must be at the helm as they must embrace people-first design, protect cultural specificity, and be transparent and accountable to the design process as Al can enhance creativity while preserving the soul of the profession.

Congrats to the honorees Zephyr Corchado Gil-Phillips, Student IIDA, University of Texas at Arlington; Aneisha Muhammad from The London Metropolitan University, Leta Pham, Student IIDA, San Jose State University, and Connor Trang, Student IIDA of Florida International University.

Learn more about the IA Interior Architects Diversity in Design Scholarship here

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