The Cooper Hewitt just announced its 2026 National Design Awards. Here are the winners

Cooper Hewitt Design Awards 2026 — (Image credit: Courtesy Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum)

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Design Visionary
Climate Action
Emerging Designer
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It’s an unprecedented time for the Smithsonian, the constellation of American museums and research institutions that includes beloved sites such as the National Portrait Gallery and the National Zoo. Last year, under an executive order titled ‘Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History,’ President Donald Trump took direct aim at the Smithsonian, prohibiting ‘programmes that degrade American values’ – particularly when it comes to diversity, equity and inclusion.

The Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is proving that diversity, across medium, discipline and geography, is precisely what makes design in the US so exceptional. Today (25 February), the New York-based museum announced its 2026 National Design Awards, one of the most prestigious honours in America's creative fields. This year’s group of ten honourees work in all scales – their fields ranging from architecture to typography; clothing to computational research – and hail from places as far-flung as Mexico City and the Appalachian foothills.

Each honoree, selected by a jury chaired by Aric Chen, director of the Zaha Hadid Foundation, will be honoured at a gala in New York this May, in time for America’s 250th anniversary celebrations.

Get to know this year’s winners below.

Design Visionary: Robert Earl Paige

Chicago-based artist Robert Earl Paige has taken home the Cooper Hewitt’s Design Visionary award, an honour that recognises ‘an individual, company or organisation that has made a profound contribution to advancing the field’.

Before Paige was an artist, he worked in the Chicago office of SOM. But corporate architecture wasn’t for him, so he moved into product and fashion design for various companies, including, notably, Sears, where he introduced mainstream consumers to colourful African-inspired accessories and decor. Paige is a pioneering figure in the Black Arts Movement and is today known for his joyful mixed-media works, which he creates from his studio on Chicago’s South Side.

Climate Action: UCSD Community Stations by Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman

The National Design Award for climate action is bestowed to practitioners who are at the forefront of the global climate crisis. This year, it goes to Teddy Cruz and Fonna Forman, both professors at the University of California, San Diego, who developed a network of civic ‘stations’ on each side of the US-Mexico border wall. Each space is located in a low-income neighbourhood and seeks to spark dialogue about resiliency and climate change.

Emerging Designer: Mattaforma

Each year, the Cooper Hewitt recognises a designer who demonstrates ‘profound talent in the early stages of their career’. This year, that honour goes to Lindsey Wikstrom, founder of the New York-based practice Mattaforma. The studio works at the intersection of architecture, policy and sustainability, with a particular focus on sustainability through innovations in mass timber, plants and other plant-based materials. Mattaforma’s projects range from elegant desert residences to greenhouses, including a space for plants at the Brooklyn-based performance space, Public Records.

Architecture: Frida Escobedo Studio

Since establishing her studio 20 years ago, Frida Escobedo has not only established herself as one of the most influential architects working in Mexico, but also in the world, through projects that range from a new wing at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, to the renovation of the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Her Mexico City and New York-based studio is known for its sensitive approach, leveraging elemental forms and organic materials found in her native Mexico, across projects spanning ground-up buildings and furniture as well as research, publications and exhibition design.

Communication Design: Thought Matter

In addition to built work, the National Design Awards also recognises innovation in ‘information sharing, messaging and overall communication’. This year, the award for Communication Design goes to Thought Matter, an independent New York-based design studio led by designers Tom Jaffe and Jessie McGuire. Working under the tagline ‘We believe imagination is a radical act’, Thought Matter has used design not only to create impactful brand messaging for big-name clients, like Procter & Gamble and The Met, but also as a political tool, through campaigns promoting free speech and social justice. ‘We believe in design as a force for connection, collaboration and questioning the status quo – a force that inspires people to engage, reflect and act,’ the studio says.

Digital Design: Laura Kurgan

The Cooper Hewitt’s award for digital design goes to ‘an individual or firm for the innovative design of digital products, environments, systems, experiences and services’. This year, that’s Laura Kurgan, a digital designer whose work leverages data visualisation and cartography to expose inequality. Through pioneering uses of tools like GIS, Kurgan, who was trained as an architect and is currently a professor at Columbia GSAPP, has shed light on pressing topics including mass incarceration, migration and urban violence. Her work has been exhibited at MoMA and the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Fashion Design: Josh Tafoya

If you think of the style of the American Southwest, you typically think of cowboy details like fringe, pearl buttons and plaid. Textile artist Josh Tafoya, the recipient of the National Design Award for fashion design, is challenging those notions through the lens of his Genizaro, Spanish and Chicano heritage. Tafoya cut his teeth in New York, but returned to Taos, New Mexico to launch his own label, mixing techniques learned from his grandmother, a weaver, with a contemporary sensibility. According to the Cooper Hewitt, Tafoya’s work is notable for ‘celebrating cultural heritage while embracing a raw, grungy spirit’.

Interior Design: Charlap Hyman & Herrero

Since founding their firm in 2014, Adam Charlap Hyman and Andre Herrero have become one of the most talked-about names in interior design for their deeply researched yet surrealist approach to space. With offices in New York, Los Angeles and Mexico City, the firm’s work is decidedly interdisciplinary and spans everything from buildings to sets and a ruffled doghouse slipcover. Especially notable are Charlap Hyman & Herrero’s interiors for private residential clients and labels, including Thom Browne, Batsheva and Aesop. ‘Through a rigorous creative process, the firm poetically engages with memory and the hidden histories of interiors, while producing radically striking, distinctly contemporary spaces,’ the Cooper Hewitt says.

Landscape Architecture: Ten Eyck Landscape Architects

Every year, the Cooper Hewitt spotlights a landscape architect for their ‘meaningful contributions to the integration between the built, urban and natural environments’. Award-winning Austin-based firm Ten Eyck Landscape Architects (TELA) fit the bill this year. The firm was founded by Christine Ten Eyck, who was inspired to start her own practice after a memorable rafting trip down the Colorado River. TELA has since focused on how water conservation, native plants and man-made design can work in tandem. The firm’s work enhances college campuses, private residences and public parks for clients, including the San Antonio Botanical Garden and the Hotel Saint Augustine in Houston. ‘Our approach evaluates landscape through a holistic lens, creating environments that are historically and ecologically sensitive while fostering a resilient and accessible future for all who inhabit them,’ the firm says.

Product Design: Berea College Student Craft

Berea College, based in Kentucky’s famed Bluegrass region, has the distinction of being the first co-educational and interracial college in the South when it was founded 170 years ago by abolitionist Reverend John G Fee. Central to its mission was craft, in keeping with its rich Appalachian heritage, an ethos that is maintained today through its Student Craft programme. Today, students are given design training and the opportunity to test and develop their own products, which results in some 4,000 items each year, ranging from blankets to instruments to pottery, which are released to the public in small-batch ‘drops’.

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Anna Fixsen is a Brooklyn-based editor and journalist with 13 years of experience reporting on architecture, design, and the way we live. Before joining the Wallpaper* team as the US Editor, she was the Deputy Digital Editor of ELLE DECOR, where she oversaw all aspects of the magazine’s digital footprint.