After achieving the Midwest’s top large architecture firm honor in 2025, Legat Architects receives 2026 recognition for a practice built on design rigor, staff growth, sustainability, and community impact.
For the last two summers, Legat Architects turned sketching into a firmwide event.
For 10 weeks, employees responded to three prompts a week. Some sketches were precise. Others were playful. All of them reflected something central to Legat’s practice: good ideas improve when more people have a chance to test them.
That same belief helped earn Legat its second consecutive recognition in The Architect’s Newspaper’s Best of Practice Awards. After securing the top firm honor in the Architect (Large Firm)—Midwest category in 2025, Legat received an Honorable Mention in the same category for 2026.
The back-to-back honor places Legat among a select group of Midwest firms recognized for design, workplace culture, sustainability, and community engagement.
A Practice Built on Participation
Legat’s six Midwestern studios each have their own character. What ties them together is a shared belief: the best idea can come from anyone.
That outlook shows up in the way teams work. Designers define the forces that affect users, study problems from more than one angle, and keep sketching until the right solution becomes clear. The process is collaborative by design, but it is also practical. It keeps the focus on people who will use the places Legat creates.
Recent examples include an Ohio State Parks visitor center with timber framing built by local Amish craftsmen, a Chicago-area Islamic community center that reflects cultural patterns, and a special education facility that supports hundreds of neurodiverse students from 11 school districts.
Sustainability With Measurable Progress
Sustainability continues to drive Legat’s work across markets.
At Heartland Community College’s Net Zero Agriculture Complex, the design responds to energy goals and the farming roots of central Illinois. The project creates a model for efficient community college facilities while giving agriculture students hands-on learning space connected to their region. The project received the Illinois Real Estate Journal 2026 LEED/Green Development of the Year Award.
Legat is also an eight-year signatory to the AIA 2030 Commitment. The firm reports to the Design Data Exchange and has recorded more than 12% improvement over the past two years. More than 40% of Legat’s architectural staff members also hold professional sustainable or well-being accreditations.
To keep those goals visible, Legat has developed a sustainable action plan and a flash card-based learning tool for employees and clients.
Where Emerging Professionals Grow
The 2026 recognition also reflects Legat’s investment in early career professionals.
American Institute of Architects (AIA) state chapters in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, and Ohio have all named Legat an Emerging Professional Friendly Firm. The designation recognizes firms that support students, recent graduates, and young professionals through mentorship, licensure assistance, and diverse project experience.
That support matters in a profession changing quickly. New technologies, economic pressures, and shifting client needs can make the early years of practice difficult. Legat’s “small firm” mindset gives emerging professionals access to seasoned mentors while still offering the resources of a larger practice. Interns and recent graduates work side by side with professionals who have spent decades refining their craft.
Impact Beyond Projects
Legat’s culture also emphasizes giving back to the public and design communities.
Quarterly outreach events connect employees with organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, Lurie Children’s Hospital, Special Olympics Illinois, and the Greater Chicago Food Depository. Legat employees also led an architecture club at an elementary school on Chicago’s South Side for 15 years.
The firm continues to support the design community as well. Recent examples include hosting AIA Chicago’s Bridge mentorship program and the International Interior Design Association’s (IIDA) Illinois chapter’s first and second Suburban Afterglow events, which extend the creative energy of NeoCon commercial interior design trade show beyond downtown Chicago.
Legat’s Columbus studio helped bring a burst of cyan to this year’s Stonewall Columbus Pride March. As part of a collaborative float by AIA Columbus, IIDA Columbus, and NOMAColumbus (Columbus chapter of National Organization of Minority Architects), the Legat team created a six-foot-tall abstract tower celebrating LGBTQIA+ people in the design industry. The tower was also displayed at The Center for Architecture and Design throughout June.
Design, Culture, Community
The Architect’s Newspaper Best of Practice Awards stand apart from most design industry awards because they go beyond individual projects.
Legat’s back-to-back Best of Practice recognition reflects a firm culture that values participation, invests in people, tracks environmental progress, and stays connected to the communities it serves.
The 2026 honor may carry a different title than last year’s win, but the message is consistent: design makes the greatest impact when it starts with listening and ends with places that help people move forward.
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