‘Culmination of my career journey’: Bennett Peji on leading San Diego architects into 2026

Bennett Peji, who recently took the reins of the local chapter of the American Institute of Architects, intends to connect architects with local government, grassroots activists and this binational region heading toward 6 million residents.

This native of the Philippines, the son of a Navy cook and a preschool teacher, husband of a Tijuana architect and father of two college-age daughters, may be the local AIA’s first executive director with a design background.

Peji is an award-winning graphic designer with decades of experience working with industry, academia and neighborhoods — his most recent visible project was the Convoy District landmark entry sign for Kearny Mesa’s Asian-Pacific Islander business community.

“It’s the culmination of my career journey,” Peji, 62, said. “I started as a high schooler wanting to be an architect.”

Soon after taking the job in September, Peji and AIA board members met with 18 San Diego city officials to talk about mutual issues and were invited to continue meeting monthly.

“They really embraced the notion that we just needed to reach out,” he said. 

The group also met with the Downtown San Diego Partnership to assist its Prebys Foundation-supported initiative to revitalize the region’s historic central business district.

Currently, he is looking forward to the June national AIA conference at the San Diego Convention — the first time since 2003 — when some 15,000 architects will discuss trends and challenges. 

Peji sat down for a two-hour introductory interview at his home just north of Mission Valley, surrounded by examples of his creative output — Japanese-inspired furniture design, imaginative graphic designs and dozens of wristwatches he’s built (no digital watch in sight).

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Q: Tell me about your personal story, starting with your birthplace, Manila, in 1963.

A:  Because my dad was in the U.S. Navy, we moved around a lot. I probably attended five or six schools before I got to Madison High School. I had very little guidance on how to go to college. I wanted to go to architecture school  and applied to the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo architectural program, the most prestigious in the state. But because I didn’t  get a scholarship, we couldn’t afford to go there, so my choice was what was the nearest university closest to my house (in Clairemont), because it’d be the cheapest because I could live at home. Believe it or not, UCSD was a little bit closer than San Diego State — I didn’t know one from the other — so I ended up there as a fine arts major. But I actually finished up at San Diego State and completely switched to communication and graphic design. My focus was my invention of “civic branding.”

Q: How did your career unfold?

A: I started my business, Bennett Peji Design. I was the master planner of the Filipino Village in National City. We won that primarily because my process was about extremely deep community involvement before designs and concepts, which is not typical. 

Q: What happened next?

A: I did consulting in Mexico, China, branding for the Tijuana Economic Development Corp., lectured in San Paulo, Brazil, Madrid, Spain, Turkey, Vancouver, Canada, the entire rebranding of Carlsbad. I met my wife, Lilia — she had an interior architecture company that fabricated furniture and would cross the border five days a week. She brought our daughters (Nicolette, 23, and Viviana, 20) down there for school for six years, because we wanted our kids to grow up knowing that, for them, there’s no border — it’s about a borderless region, the Baja-California Region.

Q: Then you made a career switch?

A: In 2014, I was recruited by the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation (founded by Joe and Vi Jacobs from Pasadena in 1995) to be vice president of their investments in Southeastern San Diego. They had set aside $300 million to try to see if that type of investment, hyper-focused on the most under-invested, under-resourced community of San Diego, could change the course of poverty and need, once and for all, through resident-led development.

Q: Wasn’t the big result the 20-acre mixed-use Market Creek Plaza that opened in 2004 at Euclid Avenue and Market Street to serve more than 20 distinct cultural groups in the area?

A: They now know they can work together and have the same life goals for the family, of safety, nutrition and all these things. I cofounded the first business accelerator course and program that partnered with the city of San Diego, focused entirely on low-income residents. The programs teach them how to be entrepreneurs and startup companies. 

Q: Then in 2020, you had to shift gears again as the COVID-19 pandemic hit?

A:  I became the chief innovation officer of Olaes Enterprises to create a fundraising platform (for schools) — Tzilla — where we invented the first platform for donor-customizable shirts.

Q: Your 2026 priorities include hosting the AIA’s national conference, June 10-13, expected to draw 12,000-15,000 attendees from around the world, but what are you hoping to achieve?

A: What can we imbue into this conference that visitors learn about the region the way it should be told, open up their eyes to what the needs and accomplishments are on both sides of the border and give them an opportunity to see all the tremendous assets in San Diego. And then some of the ones that should be amazing but are in limbo — like the RaDD (the nearly vacant Research and Development District at the former Navy Broadway Complex downtown) and Horton Plaza (the shuttered shopping center) — and convene some thought-leadership sessions.

Q: What about national architectural issues, such as the Trump administration’s proposed cutback of federal student loans to would-be architects, capped at $20,000, or its dictum that all new federal projects be designed in the Classic style of ancient Greece and Rome? 

A: That (student loan cap) is so preposterous. It inhibits diversity in architecture education, allowing only well-resourced families to attend. The notion that in this day and age, with all the advancements in design, to go back to a centuries-old style? It’s literally the most uninnovative proposal there can be.

Q: What are some of your long-term goals as AIA executive director?

A: We will double our membership to maybe 2,000. Create an identity of leading as “citizen architects,” that we are every bit as instrumental and part of the making of San Diego, not just on the micro level of individual projects but on the macro level.

Roger Showley is a freelance writer for the U-T.