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About
Awards
Fellows
Events
News
Contact
Support
Research Prize
European Research Prize
Structural Engineering Fellowship
China Fellowship
Robert L. Wesley Award

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Searching for

About
Awards
Fellows
Events
News
Contact
Support
Research Prize
European Research Prize
Structural Engineering Fellowship
China Fellowship
Robert L. Wesley Award

Research Prize

In 2018, the SOM Foundation introduced the Research Prize to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research that addresses the critical issues of our time. Each year, two $40,000 prizes are awarded to faculty-led interdisciplinary teams based in the United States to conduct original research that contributes to the SOM Foundation’s current topic.

The Research Prize is open to faculty currently teaching at a professionally accredited bachelor’s degree, master’s degree, or PhD program in architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture, urban design, or engineering in the United States. The research must be developed in a studio and/or seminar within the academic institution. The lead faculty member(s) will be expected to work in a collaborative manner with faculty from other disciplines, leading professionals, nonprofit organizations, and/or community representatives in addition to students enrolled in the studio and/or seminar. Collaborator(s) can be based worldwide. The winning teams will be required to thoroughly document their research findings and develop conclusions or suggestions for application to professional practice.

Applications Open in September 2023

2022

Somf 2022 research prize galvez munenzon proposal 01
Somf 2022 research prize galvez munenzon proposal 02

Collective Comfort: Framing the Cooling Center as a Resiliency and Educational Hub for Communities in Desert Cities

“Collective Comfort” aims to develop a public program that rethinks the cooling center as an educational resilience hub. Furthermore, “Collective Comfort” aims to bring education on heat risk and weatherization efforts to the forefront, helping to destabilize the fossil-fuel reliant single-family home by providing alternative visions that foreground collectivity and community resilience in desert cities.

Liz Gálvez
Yale University School of Architecture

Dalia Munenzon
University of Houston Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and Design

Somf 2022 research prize nida rehman proposal 01

Taking Back the Air: Collective Learning, Advocacy, and Design for a Healthy Environment

“Taking Back the Air” asks how spatial design pedagogy and research can engage in interpretive, collaborative, and community-centered approaches to weave together the complex histories, political ecologies, material effects, modes of resistance, and everyday experiences of toxic systems to help shape better worlds.

Nida Rehman
Carnegie Mellon University School of Architecture

Somf 2021 research prize davis gursoy oghazian ghazvinian west pecchia proposal 01

2021

MycoKnit: Cultivating Mycelium-Based Composites on Knitted Textiles for Large-Scale Biodegradable Architectural Structures

Felecia Davis
Ali Ghazvinian
Benay Gürsoy
Farzaneh Oghazian
John Pecchia
Andre West

Somf 2021 research prize lokko dyson proposal 01

2021

Soil Sisters: An Intersectoral Material Design Framework for Soil Health

Anna Dyson
Mae-ling Lokko

Somf 2020 research prize jones allen holliday proposal 01

2020

Reclaiming Black Settlements: A Design Playbook for Historic Communities in the Shadow of Sprawl

Diane Jones Allen
Austin Allen
Kathryn Holliday

Somf 2020 research prize lin molix welty final report 01

2020

Public Space and Scrutiny: Examining Urban Monuments through Social Psychology

Tiffany Lin
Lisa Molix
Emilie Taylor Welty

Somf research prize bonhevi denizen moreno harvard syllabus 2019

2019

The Right to Sewage: Digesting Mexico City in the Mezquital Valley

Montserrat Bonvehi Rosich
Seth Denizen
David Moreno Mateos

Somf 2019 research prize clare lyster summer hofford research image

2019

Hot Farms: How Emails Grow Tomatoes

Clare Lyster

Somf 2019 research prize mun bogosian lee shenzhen biennale

2018

Architectural Standards Guide from a Neurological Perspective

Biayna Bogosian
Kristine Mun

Somf 2018 research prize wayne place final report 01

2018

Natural Light and Health in Urban Environments

Wayne Place
Jianxin Hu
Traci Rider
Mohammad Salamati
Masoome Haghani
Pegah Mathur
Rosa McDonald
Daoru Wang
Mack Carter
Thomas Place

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