April Hughes

WORK HISTORY

EDUCATION

SKILLS

ABOUT APRIL HUGHES

April Hughes, AIA is the 2013 AIA Illinois and AIA Chicago Dubin Family Young Architect of the Year, is the owner and Managing Principal of Nurture Architects, a full service woman-owned architectural firm specializing in combating climate change through adaptive reuse in order to “Preserve a Sustainable Future” for Chicago. She is a recent recipient of the DuPont Emerging Leader Scholarship at the 2016 Design Futures Council Leadership Summit on Sustainable Design, is a U.S. Small Business Administration Emerging Leader 2016, and is a 2017 Goldman Sachs Small Businesses Scholar.April has extensive LEED experience, highlighted by the completion of three Platinum, one Gold project. She has collaborated on the creation of the Smart Code Sustainability Module, the City of Chicago’s Public Building Commission Water Reuse Manual, as well as Living Cities: Transforming APEC Cities into Models of Sustainability by 2030.A leader in Chicago firsts, April collaborated on the design of Chicago’s first greywater system for a single-family residence, and one of the first variable volume vent hood installations for a restaurant kitchen in the City; her work has resulted in Chicago\'s first net-zero single-family residence (Yannell Residence) and first net-zero commercial building (Harmony House).April’s work as appeared in the Chicago Tribune and reviewed by architectural critic Blair Kamin, Chicago Realtor, Shore Magazine, the Living Well Network, ABC7News Chicago, Elle Décor and numerous other publications. She was a featured interview by Geoffrey Baer on WTTW-Chicago (PBS) for the Yannell Residence on “Chicago Tonight.”She has contributed to the best-selling Sustainable Urbanism: Urban Design with Nature to the American Institute of Architect’s Young Architects Forum (YAF) Connection Magazine. She was a finalist in the national USGBC Emerging Green Builders Design Competition (2003) as well as AIA Chicago’s ReThink/ReDesign/ReCycle Competition (2004).