The SOM Foundation supports individuals with the highest aspirations to enhance the design of the built environment.
2024–2025 Topic
Advancing Toward a Water-Secure Future
Lake Verret, Louisiana, 2017. © Virginia Hanusik.
2024 China Fellowship
Vertical Deconstruction, Housing Equity, and Humanistic Care
Zhangxiang Dai
2024 China Fellowship
Re-Inhabit the “Invisible Room”
Wenxiao Xiang
2024 China Fellowship
Adapting Housing Strategies: Temporary Construction and Code Compliance
Xiangqing Zheng
2024 Structural Engineering Fellowship
Exploring Innovative Housing: A Playbook for Optimism
Elizabeth Claypool
Schoonschip. Floating sustainable housing collective in Amsterdam, Netherlands. © Isabel Nabuurs.
2024 Researcher-in-Residence
Hospes: Housing Justice and Multispecies Cohabitation at the Wildland-Urban Interface
Maya Livio
3D representation of Los Angeles habitats. Courtesy of Maya Livio.
2023 Research Prize
Block by Block: Advancing New American Dreams and Housing Justice by Aligning Design with Zoning Reform
Gabriel Cuéllar
De Peter Yi
A series of strategies aimed at overcoming the minimum lot size zoning ordinance and designing across lot lines. © Gabriel Cuéllar.
Ian Caine
Esteban López Ochoa
Rudy Niño, Jr.
Christine Quattro
Wei Zhain
2023 Research Prize
A Taxonomy of Vacancy: Are Underutilized Commercial Strips the Answer to San Antonio’s Housing Shortage?
The research team will create a taxonomy of vacant or underutilized parcels, establishing parameters related to size, cost, zoning, location, and use. © Ian Caine, J. William Arch, Melanie Bartholomew, Devon Duffin, Phuoc Luu, Diana Rodriguez, Evey Santillan, and Michelyn Smith.
Aerial view of the urban fabric and context of Southwest Besòs in Barcelona. © REARQ UPC.
Pere Joan Ravetllat
Còssima Cornadó
Marta Domènech
Sara Vima-Grau
2023 European Research Prize
Open System for the Urban Regeneration of Housing Estates: A Case Study in Barcelona
Call for Applications
Structural Engineering Fellowship Applications Open in January 2025
China Fellowship Applications Open in January 2025
Featured Fellow
Architectural Afterlives
2013 SOM Prize for Architecture, Design, and Urban Design
James Leng
Harvard University
Graduate School of Design
Buildings spring up opportunistically where ever the terrain allows. © James Leng.
North Korea. © James Leng.
Upcoming
Collective Comfort: Airing on Possibilities
The (Im)material Matters Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Professor Liz Gálvez, presents Collective Comfort: Airing on Possibilities, an innovative exhibition examining climate resilience in desert cities. The exhibition at the Center for Architecture + Design in San Francisco highlights design-research, full-scale prototypes, and student work that address the urgent need for alternative cooling solutions in regions facing extreme heat. Read
Recent News
SOM Foundation Supports the Exhibition Collective Comfort: Airing on Possibilities
The (Im)material Matters Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, led by Professor Liz Gálvez, presents Collective Comfort: Airing on Possibilities, an innovative exhibition examining climate resilience in desert cities. The exhibition at the Center for Architecture + Design in San Francisco highlights design-research, full-scale prototypes, and student work that address the urgent need for alternative cooling solutions in regions facing extreme heat.
2024 Robert L. Wesley Award Opens
The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of the 2024 Robert L. Wesley Award. The award supports BIPOC undergraduate students enrolled in architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture, urban design, or engineering programs in the United States. This year, three students will receive a $10,000 award in addition to a yearlong mentorship program that connects the students with leading BIPOC practitioners and educators. The award is named in honor of Robert L. Wesley, the first Black partner at SOM.
2024 European Research Prize Opens
The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of the 2024 European Research Prize. The €20,000 prize will be awarded to a faculty-led interdisciplinary team based in Europe to conduct original research that contributes to this year’s topic, “Advancing Toward a Water-Secure Future.” The European Research Prize was created in 2021 to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research that addresses the critical issues of our time”