News

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 SOM Foundation Research Prize. Two teams—one led by the Harvard University Graduate School of Design and one led by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) School of Architecture—will each receive a grant of $40,000 to conduct original research. The SOM Foundation Research Prize was created in 2018 to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research with the goal of addressing critical issues of our time. This year’s topic, “Shrinking our Agricultural Footprint,” seeks to define new spatial conditions that reduce our agricultural footprint and advance approaches to sustainability and resiliency in the short- and long-term future.

On December 3, 2019, the SOM Foundation awarded its annual UK Award to students Sun Yen Yee and Annabelle Tan. Sun Yen Yee, a student at the University of Westminster, London, won for his submission titled “SEED of Havana: Dissolving Condensers.” Annabelle Tan, a student at the University College London Bartlett School of Architecture, won for her entry, “Wetland Frontier.”

The SOM Foundation is pleased to announce the second annual Research Prize. The awards program, which comprises two $40,000 grants awarded to faculty-led interdisciplinary teams, is designed to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research that addresses the critical issues of our time.

On September 6th, the SOM Foundation is hosting the inaugural International Research and Design Forum in partnership with the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) in Chicago. At the full-day event taking place at the IIT campus, industry leaders will deliver presentations and panel discussions on the groundbreaking ideas and research that continue to elevate design thinking and capabilities.

The SOM Foundation welcomes Iker Gil as its new Executive Director. As an architect, editor, and curator, Gil will help lead the SOM Foundation as it focuses efforts on collaborations between students and faculty through the SOM Foundation Research Prize.

In May, 2019, the SOM Foundation announced the results of the 2019 SOM Foundation China Prize. Three winners—Zhu Ziyuan, Jing Qi, and Shen Jie—will each receive a $5,000 fellowship created to support the students as they embark on travel research outside of China.

On Friday, March 8th, the SOM Foundation announced Samantha Eng as the winner of the 2019 SOM Foundation Structural Engineering Research Fellowship. Eng, who will receive her Master of Science degree in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in May, 2019, will embark on a course of travel to pursue original research in Japanese cities. She will investigate how the infrastructure and the design of buildings and bridges in those cities alleviates urban density in a dignified and humanistic manner.

The SOM Foundation has announced the winners of the 2018 SOM Foundation Research Prize. Two teams—one led by North Carolina State University and one comprising representatives from the NewSchool of Architecture and Design, the University of Southern California, and Esri—will each receive a grant of $40,000 to conduct original research. These are the inaugural winners of the SOM Foundation Research Prize, which was created in 2018 to cultivate new ideas and meaningful research with the goal of addressing critical issues of our time. This year’s topic, Humanizing High Density, seeks to tackle the unprecedented rate of mass migration to urban centers worldwide.