Biography
Ann Lui, AIA is an architect and founding partner of Future Firm, a Chicago-based architecture and design research practice. Future Firm serves clients who are changemakers in their fields, including non-profits, arts and culture organizations, and community-led developers. Notable projects include South Side Community Art Center, Revolution Workshop, and projects for small businesses including Bronzeville Winery and Justice of the Pies. Future Firm has been awarded the 2026 Emerging Voices prize from the Architectural League of New York and was named Best Small Firm | Midwest in 2025 by The Architect's Newspaper. Future Firm has been exhibited at Concéntrico (summer 2026), Exhibit Columbus, the Shenzhen Bi-city Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, and Storefront for Art & Architecture.
Ann’s research explores the intersections of professional practice and equity in the built environment, arguing that configurations of practice that are taken for granted in the U.S.—namely, the governing 20th century model of the architect established through professionalization and ubiquitous contractual agreements—should be both historically understood and urgently redesigned. She was co-curator, with Niall Atkinson and Mimi Zeiger, of Dimensions of Citizenship, the 2018 U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. She co-edited Log 54 “Coauthoring” (2022), Public Space? Lost and Found (2015) and was assistant editor of OfficeUS Atlas (2015). Her current work explores rethinking conventions and methods of contemporary architectural practice, including in building codes, code violations, licensure, and contracts. Her articles include, “Toward an Office of the Public Architect,” (Log 48); “Building Code as Battleground: Activism, Amendments, and Co(Authorship)” (Harvard Design Magazine 52); and, on the relational messiness of contracts, “Promises, promises,” (e-flux Architecture, Building Assemblages, 2026).
Previously, Lui taught at University of Michigan, and has held roles at institutions across the U.S. including as the Cullinan Visiting Professor at Rice University and Baumer Visiting Professor of Architecture in the Open City at Ohio State University. She was awarded the Richard H. Driehaus Community Impact Award in 2025. She is a member of the Steering Committee for the Metropolitan Planning Council’s Zoning and Land Use assessment and the City of Chicago’s Neighborhood Opportunity Fund’s Advisory Committee.