The SOM Foundation supports individuals with the highest aspirations to enhance the design of the built environment.
2025–2026 Topic
2025 China Fellowship
Rising Tides, Resilient Lives: Reimagining Vulnerable Communities in the River Deltas of Kampung Melayu, Jakarta
Hao Chang
Reclaiming the Negative Space. © Hao Chang.
2025 China Fellowship
Reconstructing the Power Order of the “Human-Water Relationship” Along China’s Grand Canal
Lu Ming
Axonometric drawing of the inner part of the city wall in the waterfront area. © Lu Ming.
2025 China Fellowship
Four Dimensions of Water Security: Availability, Accessibility, Resilience, and Sustainability
Zhang Nan
Scene of the transformation of the space under the viaduct in the Discover Eco-corridors project. © Zhang Nan.
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.
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
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.
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
SOM Foundation Announces the 2025–2026 Topic
The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce that the 2025–2026 awards cycle will focus on the topic of “Exploring the Potential of Mobility Corridors.”
SOM Foundation Announces Winners of the 2025 China Fellowship
The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the 2025 SOM Foundation China Fellowship. Hao Chang, Lu Ming, and Zhang Nan will each receive $5,000 to conduct independent travel and research that contributes to this year’s topic, “Advancing Toward a Water-Secure Future.”
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.