The SOM Foundation supports individuals with the highest aspirations to enhance the design of the built environment.
Call for Applications
Research Prize Now Open
Robert L. Wesley Award Now Open
European Research Prize Opening Soon
Featured Fellow
The Anatomy of Sprawl
2000 Chicago Institute for Architecture & Urbanism (CIAU)
Brenda Case Scheer
University of Cincinnati
Manhattan 1660 and 1997. The shaded areas are the original blocks of Lower Manhattan, transposed on 1 1997 map on the same area. The land area has increased dramatically in the intervening years, but the original street network remains largely intact. © Brenda Case Scheer.
Residential neighborhoods with different patterns of houses, streets, and lots. © Brenda Case Scheer.
Recent News
SOM Foundation Announces Jury and Applications Open for the 2026 Robert L. Wesley Award
The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the jury for the 2026 Robert L. Wesley Award. This year’s jury will be led by SOM Foundation Executive Director Peter MacKeith and will include Germane Barnes (Associate Professor and Director, Community Housing Identity Lab, School of Architecture, University of Miami; Director, Studio Barnes, Miami), Terri Bullard (Lecturer and Herb Greene Teaching Fellow, Gibbs College of Architecture, University of Oklahoma, Norman), Teri Canada (Principal and Cofounder, EVOKE Studio, Durham), Shawn Rickenbacker (Associate Professor and Director, J. Max Bond Center for Urban Futures, Spitzer School of Architecture, The City College of New York, New York), and Douglas Voigt (Urban Design and Planning Partner, SOM, Chicago).
SOM Foundation Announces Jury for the 2026 Research Prize
The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the jury for the 2026 Research Prize. This year’s jury will be led by SOM Foundation Executive Director Peter MacKeith and will include Phillip Bernstein (Deputy Dean and Professor in the Practice, Yale School of Architecture, Yale University, New Haven), Shane Burger (Chief Design Technology Officer, SOM, New York), Charlie Catlett (Senior Computer Scientist, Argonne National Laboratory; Founding Director, Trillion Parameter Consortium, Chicago), Dana Čupková (Professor, School of Architecture, Carnegie Mellon University; Director, EPIPHYTE Lab, Pittsburgh), and Liam Young (Coordinator, MS Program in Fiction and Entertainment, Southern California Institute of Architecture; Founder, Tomorrows Thoughts Today, Los Angeles).
2026 Research Prize Opens
The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of the 2026 Research Prize. Two $30,000 prizes will be awarded to faculty-led interdisciplinary teams based in the United States to conduct original research on this year’s topic, “AI, the Built Environment, and Human Agency.” The Research Prize was created in 2018 to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research that addresses the critical issues of our time.
Applications are due Monday, December 7, 2026, at 5:00 p.m. CST. Winners will be notified no later than Monday, February 1, 2027.