August 2026: Newly Licensed Architect
AIA Cincinnati congratulates member Simon Needham who recently passed his ARE exams to become a licensed architect, moving from Associate AIA to full AIA! Kudos for your hard work and impressive accomplishments!
Simon Needham, AIA
Architect
Drawing Dept
Simon Needham is a recently licensed architect and 2024 graduate of the University of Cincinnati’s Master of Architecture program. During his time at DAAP, he was included in Metropolis Magazine’s Future100 program as one of the top 100 graduating architecture and interior design students in the U.S. and Canada—and received additional recognition from AIA Ohio, AIA Cincinnati, and the Cincinnati Design Awards. His academic and professional work is driven by a curiosity about what buildings can become, rather than simply what they are asked to be.
Simon’s thesis focused on the need for architects to design flexible spaces as a means of achieving sustainability through longevity. As an architect, he is excited by the opportunity to find ways for a building to adapt, surprise and remain useful by celebrating evolution rather than a fixed program.
After graduate school, Simon joined Drawing Dept, where he continues to practice today, working on projects as varied as a rigorously pink cocktail lounge, passively designed micro-cabins, and the adaptive reuse of a vacant warehouse for a local millworker. That range has only reinforced his belief that architecture is at its best when it provides opportunities for buildings—and the people who inhabit them—to do more than initially expected.
