Winner announced on April 30, 2014
Harvard Graduate School of Design
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Harvard University GSD is pleased to announce the finalists of the 2014 Wheelwright Prize, a 100,000 USD grant awarded annually to a single architect to support travel-based architectural research. Established in 1935 for GSD alumni, the prize was transformed by the GSD in 2013 into an open competition available to early-career architects worldwide, with the aim of fostering new forms of research informed by cross-cultural engagement.
The 2014 jury included GSD Dean Mohsen Mostafavi; architects and GSD professors Jorge Silvetti, Iñaki Abalos, and Silvia Benedito; Museum of Modern Art architecture curator Pedro Gadanho; and New York architect Linda Pollak of Marpillero Pollak, and Shohei Shigematsu, partner of OMA and director of its New York office. For extended juror biographies, please go to wheelwrightprize.org.
The 2014 edition received nearly 200 submissions from 46 countries, including Brazil, Colombia, Ghana, Greece, India, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, New Zealand, Turkey, Vietnam, and more. From this rich pool of candidates, the jury decided to award special commendation to seven individuals for their exceptional talent and imaginative research proposals. “The diversity of proposals reaffirmed for us the importance of the Wheelwright Prize,” said Dean Mostafavi. “We were impressed by the range of creative output, original thinking, and ambition to push further, expanding the notion of architectural research to address social, material, and political issues in unexpected ways.”
A winner will be named on April 30. The finalists, in alphabetical order:
Jose Ahedo, Studio Ahedo, Barcelona
(BArch 2005, Escuela Tecnica Superior de Arquitectura de la Universitat Internacional de Catalunya; MArch II 2010, Harvard GSD)
Jose Ahedo established his own firm, Studio Ahedo, in 2010. His first completed project is Blanca, a dairy complex in the Pyrenees, which includes 13 buildings comprising animal facilities, research labs, and an education center. He is also designing residential projects, and has consulted on graphic design, branding, and software development. He worked previously with Lopez-Rivera Arquitectes, aSZ arquitectes, and EQUIP Claramunt in Barcelona. He is currently collaborating on a project that will be presented as part of Rem Koolhaas’ Fundamentals, at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2014).
Wheelwright proposal: “Domesticated Grounds: Design and Domesticity Within Animal Farming Systems”
Ana Dana Beros, Think Space, Zagreb, Croatia
(MArch, 2007, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Architecture)
Ana Dana Beros is an independent architect, curator, editor, educator, and exhibition designer. She is the cofounder of ARCHIsquad and a board member of Think Space, a nonprofit that organizes conceptual architecture exhibitions. She is one of the curators of Monditalia, a section of Rem Koolhaas’ presentation at the 14th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale.
Wheelwright proposal: “INTERMUNDIA: Re-Imagining Border-Scape in Mediterranean Countries”
Alison Crawshaw, Alison Crawshaw Architects, London
(BArch 2000, Jesus College, Cambridge University, Cambridge; MArch 2004, Royal College of Art, London)
Alison Crawshaw is an architect who has worked in London, New York, and Italy. Her portfolio includes buildings, installations, and numerous public realm and strategic urban design projects. She was a senior architect at muf architecture/art for seven years and continues to collaborate with the practice. She was a Rome Scholar in Architecture 2010–11, and participated in Common Ground, David Chipperfield’s 13th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2012).
Wheelwright proposal: “The Poison and the Cure: Rubbish in the Information Age”
Masaaki Iwamoto, Partner at Vo Trong Nghia Architects, Ho Chi Minh City
(Bachelor of Engineering 2005 and Master of Engineering 2008, both from the University of Tokyo; registered architect in Japan)
Masaaki Iwamoto joined the award-winning firm Vo Trong Nghia Architects in 2011 as a partner and director of the Ho Chi Minh City office. Iwamoto worked previously at Kazuhiko Namba + Kai-Workshop in Tokyo and was a research fellow at the University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Lightweight Structures and Conceptual Design (ILEK). His work, which includes low-cost housing, a kindergarten, and workplaces, has been widely published.
Wheelwright proposal: “Tropical Skin: Study on New Building Envelope for Tropical Megacities”
Jimenez Lai, Bureau Spectacular, Chicago, IL
(MArch 2007, University of Toronto)
Jimenez Lai is the principal of Bureau Spectacular and an assistant architecture professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His previous employment includes stints at OMA, Atelier van Lieshout, and MOS. His work has been widely exhibited and published—his 2011 installation White Elephant is part of the MoMA collection, and a draft of his manifesto, Citizens of No Place (2012) has been archived at the New Museum. In 2012, Lai won the Architectural League’s Prize for Young Architects and in 2013, he won the Debut Award at the Lisbon Triennale. He will be representing Taiwan for the forthcoming Venice Architectural Biennale.
Wheelwright proposal: “Caricatures, Fictions and Hyperboles: A Revisit of the World of Wonders”
Sean Lally, Weathers, Chicago
(Bs.LA 1996, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, Landscape Architecture; MArch 2002, University of California, Los Angeles)
Sean Lally is the founder of the firm Weathers and assistant architecture professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago. Lally co-edited Softspace: From a Representation of Form to a Simulation of Space (2007), guest-edited a special issue of AD Journal titled “Energies: New Material Boundaries” (2009), and authored The Air on Other Planets (2013). He won the Rome Prize in Landscape Architecture (2012).
Wheelwright proposal: “Climate Design: The Architecture of Energies”
Kaz Yoneda, Takram Design Engineering, Tokyo
(BArch, 2007, Cornell University; MArch II 2011, Harvard GSD)
Kaz Yoneda is the founder of the Architecture and Space Design Unit at Takram Design Engineering. He worked previously at Sou Fujimoto Architects, and worked with the Center for Urban Pedagogy (CUP) on a Detroit initiative in 2007. His design work has been exhibited at dOCUMENTA 13 (2012), the 12th International Architecture exhibition at the Venice Biennale (2010), and the Beijing Biennal (2010).
Wheelwright proposal: “Utopics of Cities: Amorphous Contemporaneity of Ideal”
For artwork (finalists’ portraits, jury portraits, or portfolio work), jury quotes, interviews, or further information, please contact Cathy Lang Ho at [email protected].
*Top row: Masaaki Iwamoto, House for Trees (Ho Chi Minh City, 2014); Ana Dana Beros, On the State of the Nation, Miroslav Kraljvic Gallery (Zagreb, 2008); Jose Ahedo, Blanca Pyrenees, Education Center (Els Hostalets de Tost, Spain, 2013); Alison Crawshaw, backdrop for Serpentine Gallery’s Memory Marathon (London, 2012). Bottom row: Sean Lally, Estonian Academy of Arts (proposal for Tallin, Estonia, 2008); Kaz Yoneda, Alluvian Ecosphere: Braided Research Field (proposal for Buenos Aires, 2010); Jimenez Lai, Cartoonish Metropolis (2012).
