The School of Architecture & Environment is celebrating the recognition of Professor of Architecture and Building Science, Ihab Elzeyadi, by U.S. Department of Energy BuildingsNEXT (formerly Solar Decathlon). Elzeyadi earned a 2025 Faculty Recognition award, which is bestowed each year at the BuildingsNEXT Competition Event with awardees selected based on their contributions to their university or profession. 

"Over the last decade, this competition helped me and my University of Oregon teams of students serve underrepresented communities with real design proposals for projects with real clients and sites in small and neglected south of the border towns, inner city red-tape neighborhoods, food-insecure counties in the northwest, war-torn zones in Ukraine, and Native American tribes here at home," said Elzeyadi. 

Elzeyadi has been a steady presence in the built environment, having engaged in the design, construction, and research of high-performance buildings for over 25 years and was one of three faculty this year recognized for his work and history with the competition, having led student teams for almost a decade. Two of Elzeyadi's teams have won the Grand Jury Award two years in a row, 2020 and 2021, which is a feat no other faculty member or university team has achieved since the inception of the design competition. 

Over the years, Elzeyadi has consistently provided engaging hands-on research and design explorations in design studios, seminars, and courses in environmental control systems and high-performance building design for his students, having founded and directed both the UO High-Performance Environments Laboratory (HiPE) and the Façade Integrated Technologies testing facility. Both of these state-of-the-art, award-winning facilities provide research and consulting services for the building industry, research institutions, private, and public entities. Elzeyadi's success and hard work was recognized by his peers, who offered a glowing nomination from Associate Professor of Architecture Yekang Ko and Strategic Research Initiatives Research Development Officer Catherine Jarmin Miller who write:

With pleasure, I nominate Professor Ihab Elzeyadi for the Solar Decathalon 2025 Outstanding Faculty Award. With more than 30 years of experience in the design, construction, and research of high-performance buildings, Elzeyadi has been consistently involved with the Solar Decathlon competition for over a decade. He led student design teams that had placed finalists in four Solar Decathlon Design Competitions in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2024. Two of his teams won the Grand Jury Award two years in a row (2020 and 2021), which no other faculty member or university team has achieved since the inception of the design competition. In 2020 and 2021 his teams also won the Elementary Schools Division first place (Gold Trophy). In 2024, his team won second place in the Solar Decathlon Educational Building Division and the Best Collaboration Award. For all these competitions, Elzeyadi engaged his students in work with marginalized and under-served communities, proposing designs that would directly impact communities in need, which exceeded the goals for the Solar Decathlon Challenge. These student-community engagements are embedded in all of Professor Elzeyadi’s design studio assignments that stem from the belief that spatial justice and climate justice are closely intertwined. By supporting under-served and under-represented communities, his studio projects enabled these communities to envision possible scenarios to achieve net-zero projects and engaged his students in transformational design experiences of working on real projects with marginalized communities. Therefore, he is currently working to secure funds from Portland General Electric and other local energy utilities to provide future funding to these marginalized communities and expand their outreach for equity and accessibility to clean energy. 

Elzeyadi’s success in these challenges is the result of a long career that includes engineering training, sustainable architectural design, and teaching and mentoring in academia. He has provided design assistance for more than 8 million S.F. of commercial buildings. He is active in the research and development of clean technologies and Net-Zero building standards and guidelines. His focus on Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ) and Occupant well-being in sustainable buildings has generated new knowledge in the field and led to numerous publications and book chapters. To date, he has published more than 165 peer-reviewed papers and presentations, 12 chapters in peer-reviewed edited books, 2 books, and 1 pending US patent. At the University of Oregon, he has developed two new courses and studio curricula that prepare students to enter the Solar Decathlon competitions and engage them with local communities on real projects that benefit people and the environment. He also expanded this knowledge and experience by leading student design teams to win entries in other international competitions that focus on sustainable and net-zero building design, including ACSA/AIA COTE Top 10 Student Awards, RIBA Energy Revolution, and UIA Prize. Ihab has also partnered with colleagues and industry professionals to introduce them to the Solar Decathlon family and inspired future teams and architectural programs to engage with the competition. 

Learn More

Read the BuildingsNEXT Announcement