The SOM Foundation supports individuals with the highest aspirations to enhance the design of the built environment.
Miro’s Chicago: The Iconic Public Sculpture That Almost Wasn’t
Miro’s Chicago, Chicago, 1981. Photograph by Hedrich Blessing Photographers. © Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris 2025.
2025 Researcher-in-Residence
A Permeable Atlas
Pablo Castillo Luna
A Tent for Lovers, A Garden for Pollinators, 2022. © Pablo Castillo Luna.
2025 Structural Engineering Fellowship
Reef Resilience: Designing Modular Solutions for Coastal Protection
Rebecca Henig
Coral Rubble at Moore Reef after MARRS star installation. Courtesy of Mars Incorporated and GBR Biology.
2024 Research Prize
Imaging Underground: Illustrating Wastewater Challenges and Opportunities to Inform and Empower Alabama’s Black Belt Communities
Aurélie Frolet
Jillian Maxcy-Brown
Emily McGlohn
The Rural Studio cluster system demonstration site is in Newbern, a rural Black Belt Alabama town. © Tim Hursley.
Dingliang Yang
Jennifer Yoos
Maura Rockcastle
Ross Altheimer
Roger Cummings
Daniel Carlson
Changó Cummings
2024 Research Prize
Soft-Urban Riverfront: A New Paradigm for Headwater Metropolises
Mapping of the “Soft-Urban Riverfront” along the Mississippi River in the Twin Cities, highlighting Pig’s Eye as a crucial site with a history of pollution, rich Indigenous heritage, and ecological significance. © Dingliang Yang and Michael Keller.
2024 European Research Prize
Coastal Register: Research and Design of Nature-based Solutions for Wetland Water Security
Map of Clew Bay in County Mayo. © Helen McFadden.
Steve Larkin
Helen McFadden
2024 Robert L. Wesley Award
Ferras Coulibaly
“Glitched Systems” is a product of manipulating established architectural works, reinterpreted through the theme of “glitch.” © Ferras Coulibaly.
2024 Robert L. Wesley Award
Erin Kurtycz
Kalamazoo Post Office Branch. © Erin Kurtycz.
2024 Robert L. Wesley Award
Beni Lawson
Treehouse—Consequences of Your Actions. © Beni Lawson.
2024 Robert L. Wesley Award
Salma Rodriguez
“Framing Mobility Through Space.” © Salma Rodriguez.
2021 European Research Prize
Constructive Land
Paloma Gormley
Summer Islam
Call for Applications
Research Prize Applications Open in September 2025
European Research Prize Applications Open in September 2025
Robert L. Wesley Award Applications Open in September 2025
Featured Fellow
Weather Permitting: The Journey of a Storm Chaser
2006 SOM Prize for Architecture, Design, and Urban Design
Catie Newell
Rice University
School of Architecture
Rain or shine. © Cathlyn Newell.
Floating world. © Cathlyn Newell.
Sulphur pool. © Cathlyn Newell.
Past
Creating New Architecture Through Research: On Materiality
The second International Research and Design Forum took place on Friday, October 14 and Saturday, October 15, 2022, and was organized by the SOM Foundation in partnership with the Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Architecture (IntCDC) at the University of Stuttgart. The two-day event included presentations by academics and industry leaders whose body of work, creativity, and expertise inspire the future of materiality in the built world. Read
Recent News
Miro’s Chicago: The Iconic Public Sculpture That Almost Wasn’t
Spanish artist Joan Miró’s first large-scale public sculpture was commissioned in the early 1960s by Bruce Graham as part of his design for the Brunswick Building in Chicago. While the building was completed in 1965, Miró’s work remained unrealized, and its future seemed more than uncertain. Fifteen years later, plans for Miro’s Chicago were revived and, in 1981, the now-beloved abstract sculpture finally found her rightful place in Chicago, supported in part by a donation from the SOM Foundation.
SOM Foundation and MAK Center for Art and Architecture Announce Winner of the 2025 Researcher-in-Residence
The MAK Center for Art and Architecture and the SOM Foundation are pleased to announce that Pablo Castillo Luna has been awarded the 2025 Researcher-in-Residence. Pablo Castillo Luna is a Canary Islands-born architect and educator who teaches at Cornell University’s College of Architecture, Art, and Planning. Castillo Luna will receive a $5,000 stipend and a six-week summer residency in Los Angeles in the live/work space at the MAK Center’s Fitzpatrick-Leland House designed by R.M. Schindler (1936) for work related to his research proposal, “A Permeable Atlas.”
SOM Foundation Announces Winner of 2025 Structural Engineering Fellowship
The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the winner of the 2025 Structural Engineering Fellowship. Rebecca Henig, a spring 2025 graduate of the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering, will receive $20,000 to conduct original research related to her proposal, “Reef Resilience: Designing Modular Solutions for Coastal Protection.” During her fellowship, Henig will scuba dive at seven reef sites worldwide to research and reimagine structural solutions for threatened coral reefs, with a goal of enhancing coastal protection while protecting marine ecosystem vitality.