2025 Conference, Expo, and Design Awards

AIA Central PA’s Architectural Design Awards Information can be found here

CONFERENCE AND EXPO INFORMATION

The 2025 AIA Central Pennsylvania Conference, Expo and Design Awards will be held in Lancaster, PA at the Armstrong Campus in celebration of Armstrong’s 75th Anniversary! The tentative schedule is below. Please check back for updates.

DATE | Thursday, September 18, 2025
TIME | 2:00PM – 8:00PM

REGISTRATION FOR HAPPY HOUR KEYNOTE AND DESIGN AWARDS | REGISTER HERE

**This Year Tour Registration is separate from event registration due to tour attendance limitations.*

AGENDA
3:00pm – 5:00pm | Architectural Tours (More Information coming soon)

2:00-3:00pm Tour 1 (Acoustics w/ Chris Brooks & Tour of the AWI Acoustics Lab) Meet in Presentation Room

- 25 people (AIA members only, no industry members) | REGISTRATION REQUIRED
- Chris Brooks – 30 minute talk about acoustics and sound waves
- 30 minutes for tour of AWI Acoustics Lab hosted by Sean Browne, AWI Senior Manager Research & Development

- - Guided tour of AWI’s third party accredited acoustical testing facility. Experience the reverberation chamber, anechoic chamber and Ceiling Attenuation Class test rooms and learn how construction assemblies and material choices impact the performance of a space.
  - REGISTER HERE FOR THE 2PM TOUR

3:00-4:00pm Tour 2 (Armstrong Training Center Overview & Workshop) Meet in Presentation Room | REGISTRATION REQUIRED

- 25 people (AIA members only, no industry members)
- Ben Hinkle, AWI Full Line Sales Manager

- - The Armstrong Training Center is a state of the art 6,000 square foot training facility that opened in February 2023. The ATC includes a 30+ person classroom as well as a hands-on installation area. Distributors, contractors, AWI sales representatives, architects, designers and more have all been amazed by the experience of learning about AWI ceiling systems in this dynamic environment.
  - REGISTER HERE FOR THE 3PM TOUR

4:00-5:00pm Tour 3 (Campus History & Architectural Tour) Meet in Presentation Room

- 40 – 50 people (open to all)
- Meredith Baxter, AWI Campus Experience Manager and Gregg Scott, RLPS Architects
- Celebrating 75 Years of the Lancaster Campus

- - Evolution through the decades from our original R&D Center in the 1950s to cutting-edge customer experience spaces and award-winning sustainable buildings
  - Defining architectural styles and elements that have inspired employees, customers and visitors
  - REGISTER HERE FOR THE 4PM TOUR

5:00pm – 6:30pm | Happy Hour & Expo

Unwind and mingle at our Happy Hour & Expo, where great conversations and connections await! Enjoy complimentary food and beverages while you explore a diverse range of exhibitor booths. Discover the latest products, innovations, and solutions that can enhance your everyday design work. This is your chance to chat directly with industry experts, gather valuable resources, and exchange ideas with fellow professionals from across the region. Don’t miss this opportunity to build relationships and stay inspired in a relaxed, social atmosphere!

6:00pm – 7:00pm | Keynote Speaker – : Industrial & Digital Design w/ Nate Baxter, AWI Director of Design & Digital Services

Nathan Baxter has a rich background in industrial design and has worked in a variety of design roles at AWI over the past 18 years. Today, Baxter is the Director of Design and Digital Services. His team develops meaningful solutions that add value to commercial spaces and provides a collaborative digital design service to support customers across the complete time horizon of design-construction projects. This unique service pairs technology with a human-advice element to help advance design concepts in the most efficient and sustainable way possible. Baxter continues to lead with a deep passion for design and an innate appreciation for how his teams work benefits end users’ day-to-day lives.

An industrial designer by training, Baxter was drawn to the field as a more practical creative outlet than fine arts might provide, building an interest into a life-long career. Baxter has played a direct or indirect role in the design and development of much of Armstrong’s current ceiling product lineup, first as staff, senior, and principal designer, and then as a marketing manager, where he leveraged his design background to guide his team toward a better understanding of end users and markets. His focus then shifted back to design, but with a view toward digital technologies where he managed the Product Design Team, while also leading the development and launch of ProjectWorks Design and PreConstruction Service.

Today, Baxter is working to take the business to the next level—not just in the strategic direction of commercial digitalization and design, but also the development of people and, ultimately, in the spaces they’re helping to create. His approach is built on the belief that confidence in communicating one’s creativity is the key component in transforming creative ideas into something real, and that self-expression and collaboration nurture meaningful design. That nets the ultimate reward: Seeing well designed and beautifully installed products impact the commercial spaces that we all experience.