Finalists announced: April 7, 2015
Finalists will present their work at Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) on April 16, 2015.
Harvard Graduate School of Design
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Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD) is pleased to announce the finalists of the 2015 Wheelwright Prize, a 100,000 USD grant awarded annually to a single architect to support travel-based architectural research. The prize is now in its third year as an open international competition for early career architects, aimed at fostering new forms of research informed by cross-cultural engagement.
As in the previous two cycles, the 2015 Wheelwright Prize received nearly 200 submissions. The number of countries represented has expanded, from 46 last year to 51 this year, including Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Cuba, Iran, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, Zimbabwe, and more. From this rich pool of applicants, the jury selected three finalists who have been invited to present their work and proposals at Harvard GSD on April 16. The event is free and open to the public. A winner will be announced at the end of April.
“The strength and diversity of the applications are growing each year, making the jury’s job increasingly difficult,” said K. Michael Hays, Wheelwright Prize organizing committee member and 2015 jury chair. “It’s gratifying see so many young architects approach their work as part of larger intellectual projects.”
The 2015 Wheelwright Prize jury: K. Michael Hays, Craig Evan Barton, Preston Scott Cohen, Sarah Herda, and Elisa Silva. (For extended juror biographies, please visit the Wheelwright Prize website).
The three finalists are listed in alphabetical order:
Erik L’Heureux—Pencil Office, Singapore
(BA in Architecture 1996, Washington University; MArch 2000, Princeton University)
Erik L’Heureux is currently an Assistant Professor at the National University of Singapore, where he researches building envelopes in equatorial climates. He is a registered architect in the US, and is NCARB-certified and LEED-accredited. He has won numerous design awards including the 2013 World Architecture Festival (WAF) Category Design Award and the 2011 President’s Design Award from Singapore. He co-curated and designed the exhibition 1,000 Singapores: A Model of the Compact City, which first appeared at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010, and which will be presented later this year at the Cité de l’Architecture et du Patrimoine in Paris.
Wheelwright proposal: “Hot and Wet: The Equatorial City and the Architectures of Atmosphere”
Malkit Shoshan—FAST, Amsterdam
(BArch 2004, Technion–Israel Institute of Technology; current PhD candidate TU Delft)
Malkit Shoshan is the founder of the Amsterdam-based architectural think-tank FAST (Foundation for Achieving Seamless Territory). Her work explores the relationship between architecture, politics, and human rights. She is the author of the award-winning book Atlas of Conflict: Israel-Palestine (Uitgeverij 010, 2010) and co-author of Village: One Land Two Systems and Platform Paradise (Damiani Editore, 2014). Her work has been published in Volume, Abitare, Frame, Haaretz, New York Times, and other publications. She has also exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2002, 2008), the Netherlands Architecture Institute (2007), Experimenta (2011), and the Het Nieuwe Instituut (2014).
Wheelwright proposal: “Architecture and Conflict: Pre-Cycling the Compound”
Quynh Vantu—Studio Quynh Vantu, London
(BArch 2001, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University; MArch 2009, Cranbrook Academy of Art; current PhD candidate at the Bartlett School of Architecture–University College London)
Quynh Vantu is a licensed architect and artist with a studio-based practice devoted to spatial experimentation. Drawing from her upbringing in the American South, Vantu is particularly interested in the notion of hospitality and thresholds of social interaction. She has received numerous awards and grants, including a Worldstudio AIGA Grant (2009) and the Stewardson Kefee LeBrun Travel Grant-AIA NY (2009–10). She has also won several artist residencies, including at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts in Omaha, Nebraska (2010); Olafur Eliasson’s Institut für Raumexperimente in Berlin, Germany (2010–11); and the McColl Center for Art and Innovation in Charlotte, NC (2014). She received the University College London Scholarship to pursue a PhD at the Bartlett School of Architecture.
Wheelwright proposal: “On Movement: The Threshold and Its Shaping of Culture and Spatial Experience”
In addition to the finalists’ presentations at Harvard GSD on April 16, Gia Wolff, the winner of the 2013 Wheelwright Prize, will present her research to date on her long-term project Floating City: The Community-Based Architecture of Parade Floats.
For more information, please contact Cathy Lang Ho.
*From left to right: Quynh Vantu, Variable Measure (McColl Center for Art and Innovation, 2014). Malkit Shoshan, Zoo, or the Letter Z, just after Zionism, (NAiM, 2011). Erik L’Heureux, Lightweight EIFS (exterior insulation and finishing system) for factory building facade (Singapore, 2009–12). Photo: Ben Premeaux, Johannes Schwarz, Kenneth Choo.
