SOUTHFIELD, Mich. — Quan Thai, OAA, Assoc. AI, tenure-track assistant professor of architecture in Lawrence Technological University’s College of Architecture and Design (CoAD), won the prestigious Founders’ Award at the DesignTO (Design Toronto) Festival, Canada’s largest annual design festival, last month.
His installation, titled “TO-BE-LONGING: Portraits of Queer Living,” was displayed at the Ace Hotel Toronto and was the second iteration of the original project based in Cambridge, Ontario, for Design at Riverside.
The award recognizes the jury’s selection of the project that best aligns with DesignTO’s purpose to bring people together to design a better future. DesignTO Festival Founders sponsored the prize. His project was also cited as a festival highlight by Wallpaper* Magazine (UK) and Azure Magazine (Canada).
Said awards juror Sara Edo: “We felt that Quan Thai’s installation beautifully weaved themes of queer domesticity, intimate space-making, and kinship formation in an honest and reflective way. He embraced an unlikely space (a hotel room) with creativity and imagination and executed the challenge very well.”
Thai said: “Receiving the Founders’ Award validates the power and impact of collective queer resilience, especially in a time when many of our voices continue to be oppressed. It’s been an honor to create a safe space to welcome the community into our homes—celebrating the nuances of our identity and the quiet, yet powerful ways we build self-determination within the domestic, while remaining outside the margins of the status quo.”
TO-BE-LONGING: Portraits of Queer Living explores how the places we live should truly reflect who we are. The exhibition, panel, and exhibition tour critiqued the boundaries of established societal ideas, challenging the normative functions and aesthetics of the domestic sphere. Alongside the exhibition was a panel discussion where panelists considered how a space can adapt to varying needs—whether seeking a moment of privacy or a chance for vulnerability—and how the creation of home can more accessibly cater to diverse identities in search of inclusive manners of living.
The exhibition focused on the resilience and belonging found in queer living, celebrating the fluidity and nuances of queer domesticity to meet the ever-changing needs and desires for self-determination. Featured in the show were intimate artifacts from the home: everyday objects collected from queer community members across North America. These items share powerful stories about queer identity, memory, and chosen family, defining the multiplicity of what ‘queer living’ looks like today. Functioning as a living archive set within a fluid interpretation of home, the viewer was invited to engage, reshape, and rethink what “home” means to them.
Thai is a licensed architect with the Ontario Association of Architects (OAA), an Associate member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), and founder of Never Only Architecture. He was most recently an Associate, Architecture at SvN Architects + Planners, a multidisciplinary firm with offices around North America. His practice builds on over ten years of experience working on high-profile conceptual and built work across North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. He was the inaugural Emerging Practitioner Teaching Fellow (2023-25) at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture in Canada, and has taught at the Daniel’s Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design at the University of Toronto and Interior Design at The Creative School, Toronto Metropolitan University.
His work prioritizes diverse perspectives, collaborative inquiry, and accessible knowledge-sharing to create inclusive spaces across diverse identity groups. His professional experience includes notable international architecture firms, including WORKac in New York City and Atelier Barda in Montreal, informing his teaching expertise in design and construction technologies, spanning scales from interiors to master planning.
CoAD Interim Dean Lilian Crum said, “Thai’s exhibit and his contribution to the architecture curriculum at Lawrence Tech expand the understanding of how architecture operates not only as a physical structure, but as a cultural and social framework. His exhibition invites viewers to consider the ways design can create space for belonging, identity, and agency. We congratulate Professor Thai on this great achievement.”
Lawrence Technological University is one of only 13 independent, technological, comprehensive doctoral universities in the United States. Located in Southfield, Mich., LTU was founded in 1932, and offers more than 100 programs through its Colleges of Architecture and Design, Arts and Sciences, Business and Information Technology, Engineering, and Health Sciences, as well as Specs@LTU, which offers communication training programs of the former Specs Howard School, and LTU’s growing Center for Professional Development. PayScale lists Lawrence Tech among the nation’s top 11 percent of universities for alumni salaries. Forbes and The Wall Street Journal rank LTU among the nation’s top 10 percent. U.S. News and World Report lists it in the top tier of best in the Midwest colleges. Students benefit from small class sizes and a real-world, hands-on, “theory and practice” education with an emphasis on leadership. Activities on Lawrence Tech’s 107-acre campus include more than 60 student organizations and NAIA varsity sports.