UC Riverside’s new School of Business building has won an American Architecture Award, which recognizes design excellence and innovation.

The building, which opened in fall 2024, was honored in the schools and universities category in the 2025 awards announced on Oct. 30 by the Chicago Athenaeum Museum of Architecture and Design.

The museum partners with the European Center for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies, and Metropolitan Arts Press, to honor significant contributions to contemporary American architecture.

“These projects represent the best new architecture created by American architects and international firms with offices in the United States,” the museum stated in its announcement.

The four-story, 63,400-square-foot School of Business building, is the first designed for business education. It includes a large auditorium, classrooms, a computer and finance lab, and study and lounge spaces.

The building features locally sourced red brick known as UCR Brick, large glass windows, and metal sunshades and fins for shading and to reduce glare. An outdoor plaza is shaded by parts of the second floor that extend out front. In the back, the project blends into the hillside so that the second floor leads out to an open courtyard that can be used as a mini-amphitheater.

The project was designed by the Santa Monica-based Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners. Contractor McCarthy Building Companies oversaw construction.