In 1996 Exley was the recipient of the AIA Chicago Young Architect Award and in 2003 received the AIA Illinois Excellence in Education Award. In 2012, with his partner and wife, Sharon Exley, he was awarded the Benjamin Moore HUE Award for exceptional use of color in commercial architecture. In 2017 Exley was awarded the AIA Chicago and the AIA Chicago Foundation’s Professional Excellence & Distinguished Service Award

Exley earned a Bachelor of Arts in Architectural Studies with first-class honours from Newcastle University in 1985 and a Master of Architecture from the University of Pennsylvania in 1990. Prior to founding his own firm in 1994, he worked for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill in Chicago and London and with Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates in Philadelphia. Architecture Is Fun’s work has been exhibited at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Architecture Foundation and the ICA in Philadelphia. In 2012, Exley was named President of American Institute of Architects Chicago for the year 2013.

Peter Exley (born August 2, 1964 in Harrogate, England) is the co-founder of Architecture Is Fun, a Chicago-based architecture and design firm. Exley’s projects include the DuPage Children’s Museum, the House in the Woods, a 21,000-square-foot (1,950m2) Ronald McDonald House in Oak Lawn, Illinois, the Exploration Station children’s museum and the Young at Art Museum’s exhibits and galleries in Davie, Florida.