News

The SOM Foundation is saddened to hear the news of the passing of architect Léon Krier. In August 1986, Krier was appointed the inaugural director of the Chicago Institute for Architecture and Urbanism (CIAU) but he would resign a few months later before the CIAU opened. Our condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues.

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.”

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.

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.”

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.

Congratulations to Material Cultures and Central Saint Martins, University of The Arts London who, along with OEB Architects and WonKy, have jointly won the 2025 Architects’ Journal Small Projects Award. Material Cultures’ Clearfell House was supported by the SOM Foundation through the 2021 European Research Prize. The three projects were considered as best in class among the thirty projects costing up to £399,000, with judges recognizing the separate strengths of all three winning schemes in terms of environmental sustainability, social purpose, and materiality. Judges said Clearfell House “was very strong” in comparison to the other shortlisted projects, and praised its educational aspect. The scheme was developed as a new home for Forestry England in Dalby Forest, Yorkshire, with Central Saint Martins’s Regenerative Construction unit. The jury said it was also “probably the most sustainable on the 30-strong list” in terms of materiality.

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of the 2025 China Fellowship. The $5,000 China Fellowship is awarded annually to three students in the last two years of either an undergraduate or graduate program in architecture, landscape architecture, interior architecture, or urban design in the People’s Republic of China to conduct independent travel and research that contributes to the SOM Foundation’s current topic, “Advancing Toward a Water-Secure Future.” The China Fellowship was created in 2006 to support emerging design leaders to broaden their education and contribute to their future professional and academic careers.

The SOM Foundation and the MAK Center for Art and Architecture are now accepting applications for the 2025 Researcher-in-Residence. A fully funded summer residency program based in Los Angeles, the Researcher-in-Residence program provides an architect, artist, and/or researcher dedicated space and time for innovative work that addresses pressing issues related to the built environment. This year’s topic is “Advancing Toward a Water-Secure Future,” which corresponds to the SOM Foundation’s 2024–2025 research topic. The Researcher-in-Residence will receive a $5,000 stipend and a four-to-eight-week summer residency in the live/work space at R.M. Schindler’s Fitzpatrick-Leland House in Los Angeles, which is also home to the MAK Center’s Study Center.

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the opening of the 2025 Structural Engineering Fellowship. The $20,000 fellowship will be awarded to a student currently enrolled in a master’s or PhD program or in the final year of their bachelor’s program based in the United States who specializes in structural engineering to conduct independent travel and research that contributes to this year’s topic, “Advancing Toward a Water-Secure Future.” The Structural Engineering Fellowship was created in 1998 to support research that has the potential to influence the practice and teaching of how structures can positively impact our built environment.

The SOM Foundation is saddened to hear the news of the passing of architect and DS+R founder Ricardo Scofidio, recipient of the 1989 Chicago Institute for Architecture & Urbanism (CIAU) fellowship along with Elizabeth Diller. Our condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues at DS+R.