Jenae Edwards
University of Southern California
School of Architecture
In “Siren City,” the future of urbanism is defined by “Super Infrastructure.” Circular walls rise from the ocean floor to the water’s surface, parting the sea to create newly exposed ground for urban development. This system not only establishes buildable land but also generates opportunities to harvest energy and fresh water through desalination, utilizing the waterfalls that cascade along the city walls. © Jenae Edwards.
Jury
Teri Canada
Lisa C. Henry
Camille Martin-Thomsen
Robert L. Wesley (Chair)
Amber N. Wiley
Receiving the Robert L. Wesley Award is deeply meaningful to me, and I am sincerely grateful and ecstatic for this recognition. After experiencing a gap in my education due to a natural disaster, this award is especially encouraging and reinforces my commitment to making a meaningful impact through architecture.
“Siren City” reimagines the future of urban living within the coastal ecological condition defined as “Surfurbia” in Reyner Banham’s Los Angeles: The Architecture of Four Ecologies. This visionary city is designed to thrive in a world transformed by rising sea levels, reclaiming submerged land to form a new inhabitable terrain. The conceptual approach explores how to design a city built for water, in water, and even underwater through the use of super-infrastructure. Siren City proposes an urban model that embraces water as an active and essential partner in shaping the built environment. © Jenae Edwards.
“The Architecture of Sinking Cultures” investigates how architecture can be utilized to adapt to rising sea levels in order to preserve cultural identity across vulnerable island nations or “sinking cultures.“ Through fieldwork in Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands, two island nations predicted to disappear in the next 50 years, the work develops a framework of design principles that merge indigenous knowledge, ecological resilience, and adaptive technology. The goal is to redefine adaptation not as resistance, but as coexistence, positioning architecture as a tool for cultural continuity, environmental stewardship, and community empowerment in the face of climate change. © Jenae Edwards.
Principle 7 of “The Architecture of Sinking Cultures,” “Designing With Water,” integrates architecture with hydrology, ecology, and culture through tidal landscapes, amphibious foundations, coastal rehabilitation, and reef restoration that absorb and redirect water rather than block it. Water embodies flow, and successful adaptation comes not from resisting it but from designing in symbiosis with it. In sinking cultures, the ocean is a form of land that shapes identity, navigation, and survival. Architecture becomes the bridge that allows land, sea, and community to rise, breathe, and adapt together. © Jenae Edwards.
Jenae’s design practice lies at the intersection of architecture, ecology, and culture. Her topics and approach reveal a genuine commitment to creating positive change for both people and the environments they inhabit. She engages with questions of sustainability, resourcefulness, and equity with a maturity well beyond her academic level. In studio, she demonstrated impressive material understanding, technical competence, and conceptual rigor—qualities that enable her to approach complex environmental and social challenges with creativity and precision. Her research pursuits extend these same strengths of intellectual depth, initiative, and integrity.
Julia Sulzer
Lecturer, USC School of Architecture
Adjunct Instructor, USC Sol Price School of Public Policy
The “Joshua Diamond” is a building component constructed from sustainably sourced materials, including reclaimed wood, designed to respond to the climatic conditions of the Joshua Tree Desert in California. © Jenae Edwards.
Conceived as an active façade, it reflects and adapts to the desert environment rather than shielding against it. The component incorporates fibers from tumbleweeds and native desert plants as a filtration system, addressing one of the region’s most pressing environmental challenges: airborne pollution. © Jenae Edwards.
The “Joshua Diamond” is designed as a reproducible facade system for architectural spaces in the Joshua Tree Desert, emphasizing minimally invasive construction. Its adaptive form and material strategy respond to and help mitigate human-induced environmental conditions within the desert landscape. © Jenae Edwards.
Jenae Edwards
University of Southern California
School of Architecture
Jenae Edwards
is a fourth-year Bachelor of Architecture student at the University of Southern California. She serves as the co-president of the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students (NOMAS) chapter at USC. Born in the Bahamas and raised in the Caribbean, she has witnessed how architecture shapes cultural identity, vulnerability, and community life in small island contexts. Edwards is a recipient of a USC 2025 Architecture Research Travel Fellowship and conducted fieldwork in Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands, and Fiji, where she gained insight into how architecture can adapt to environmental change while protecting and evolving cultural systems. Her work is deeply motivated by the realities of rising sea levels and shifting climate conditions, particularly their impact on island nations and coastal cultures. Edwards is also passionate about expanding access to architectural discourse, using video and podcast platforms to share insights on architecture, research, and the student experience with a broader audience. Her other interests include fashion and visual arts, where she blends her love of dinosaurs with her passion for design.